Harry Potter and the Bees
by Rico Perrien
Summary: Harry Potter finally gets to be the 'boy who lives'. However, life goes in different directions than he and his friends thought it would. As time goes on, Harry discovers new allies, and his friends resolve issues. Another sequel to Pansy Invictus
1. Introduction and Reevaluation

**Harry Potter and the Bees**

Rating: M for language and general nastiness

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

**Author's Notes**:

Sometimes it's the things you ignore which turn out to be the most important. And sometimes, those things are hidden in plain sight.

The film director Alfred Hitchcock often used this as a distraction, saying what you imagined was more frightening than what you saw.

It is said that the only person more dangerous than someone with everything to lose is someone who has nothing to lose.

It is a principle of toxicology that the dose makes the poison. Just because something may be a poison in large doses does not make it dangerous of itself. Consider salt, alcohol or oxygen.

Although there is no canonical reason for it, Hermione's parents are often labelled as Dan and Emma. I have developed my own back-story for them, and have named them accordingly. I have used the same names in some other stories as well. I have long been fascinated by how people end up where they finally get to, and the back-stories explore this.

The opinions and actions of some characters are not necessarily the opinions of the author. Sometimes, I like to explore alternate viewpoints.

Note to breeders – plot bunnies are very prolific.

Note to Readers – this story is not going to unfold in strictly chronological order. Life never happens that way, and there are some times when things happen and then the consequences occur sometime later, and other things have happened in between. So it goes.

**Re-evaluations: Harry and Ginny**

Harry Potter knew that something had changed significantly when, in the midst of a professional Quidditch match on a cold rainy Scottish late-December day where he, as the seeker for the Edinburgh Tartans playing against the Belfast Orange-and-Greens, thought to himself "This is a bloody stupid game!" It had just struck him that he loved the flying, but chasing a little gold sphere for the entertainment of a bunch of drunk sports fans was an incredible waste of time for a man who had spent his life being threatened with death around every corner, and had finally defeated and killed the most powerful and feared wizard in the world. He had died in the process, and come back to life afterwards, so the score in a weekly game was becoming totally irrelevant. He needed to do something more significant with his life.

All Harry had wanted was to live a normal life. He had absolutely no idea how to go about it, as he had never had what most people would regard as a normal life. To Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Live, The-Man-Who-Conquered, etc, etc, a normal life was being bullied by his relatives, then being bullied by his schoolmates, then almost getting killed, then being bullied (repeated ad infinitem, ad nauseum, et cetera).

He had managed to survive his childhood, making a couple of good friends, and a couple of very good friends. He was admired, and worshipped by the female magical community (perhaps "lusted after" being more accurate), had inherited wealth beyond his imagining, and was constantly aware that people around him were in a never-ending quest to use him and his fame and his wealth for their own ends. And he hated it, all of it, except for the part of having some good friends.

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry was at loose ends. In the back of his mind, and his heart of hearts, he had truly not expected to survive. Therefore, he had made no plans that had required any real commitment on his part.

He had received letters from Gringott's bank requesting meetings regarding his inheritances, both from his own family as well as from Sirius Black (his godfather). On his adulthood, he received his inherited wealth from both family line (as sole heir of both Sirius and his natural family) ending up with (as Ginny Weasley summarized it) "More money than God". This included an incredible amount of wealth, in cash, business investments, property (both land and buildings, and associated house elves), and incidentally he became the titular head of two "Noble and Ancient Houses", and as such held authority over a number of fiefdoms around the world, as well as _ex officio_ positions on several official organizations such as the Wizengamot and the Ministry of International Wizarding Sports (the authority over quidditch and other magical activities). He was also expected, by Wizarding Law, to have a separate wife as the 'Lady of the House' for each of the two Noble Houses, and was allowed several concubines associated with each House.

Harry had taken the honorarium which came with his Order of Merlin (1st class) and had set up a trust fund for those who had lost so much during the war with Voldemort. Ron was stunned by this largesse until Harry pointed out that, given the size of his inheritances it made absolutely no difference to him personally, and he felt uncomfortable, even unclean, when he had inherited so much while others had lost so much. Harry added substantial money from his own inheritances, and directed that some of the funds be used to repair houses that had been damaged, as well as providing scholarships to both Hogwarts and top muggle schools (at the recipients' choice) for those who would otherwise not be able to afford it. When news of these actions hit the news, Harry received even more attention, and he hated that too, even if it was for 'good deeds'.

Harry's friends Hermione and Ron had each received the 1st class, and Ron's mother Molly had also received a 1st class for taking on, and taking out, the Death Eater Bellatrix LeStrange. Ginny, George and Fred Weasley had each received a 2nd class Order (Fred posthumously, and as he had no legal dependants, the honorarium due to him was given to his surviving family). The honoraria had changed things at the Weasley household substantially. The 1st class came with a donative of a hundred thousand galleons, while the 2nd class came with 50 thousand. Neither Ron nor Ginny would really have to work for a living, ever, but the lessons of being brought up in a poor family kept their heads on straight (neglecting the shopping trip where Ginny and Hermione indulged their whims for fancy clothing, and in Ginny's case, some rather fancy underwear which she had never been able to afford before).

Hermione knew she could afford to attend the best universities in the world, as money was no object (this, in addition to the fact her parents had been putting away money for her schooling for most of her life). However, she found that Hogwarts had not covered many topics considered standard for most schools, and that she would have to take some remedial lessons to cover the standard curriculum in order to be admitted to any non-magical university. Her enthusiasm for this task horrified Ron (more books, more school, arggh!).

Harry spent a good deal of the summer, following the battle, travelling to his various properties. He took Hermione, Ron and Ginny Weasley along on these trips. Ron and Hermione were at loose ends as well, and Ginny was invited both as a friend and possible future companion. As part of the property titles, Harry had the apparition coordinates, so that the three older folks could apparate to each, and one could do a side-along with Ginny (as she had not yet got her apparition license). Often one would go ahead to a property which had been unoccupied for some time, and activate its floo system, and then the others could arrive at will.

The travelling also gave Harry and Ginny time to see whether they could make up for lost time. Her parents were a bit reticent on the travelling arrangements, but as they had been dreaming of this match for a long time, and if nothing else, Ron and Hermione could be counted on as chaperones (to a degree) and Harry was the most honourable 'kid' they knew.

Harry found that Sirius's old home at Grimmauld Place was just too depressing to live in on a permanent basis, as the entire building reminded him of all that he had lost.

He discovered that he liked the location of his parent's house in Godric's Hollow, which had been destroyed when Voldemort murdered his father and mother when he was an infant. With unlimited funds at his disposal, he had arranged to have the house rebuilt as a manor house, with a swimming pool and hot tub, and a quidditch pitch – when the elves completed it four days later, (all the while apologising profusely for the delays needed to remove the burned-out portions of the old house), he moved in. The 'Boy-who-lived' was finally getting an opportunity to really live.

The estate that the house sat on had a working farm, and Harry found that it too was part of his inheritances. The steward and farm manager of the property had been there since the elder Potters had died, although the steward, Mr Witbread, had been training his son to take over as soon as 'The Squire' returned so that he could submit his resignation (being 75 years old and having honourably served for 40 years himself).

After a day around the grounds, spending some time flying, playing pickup quidditch with Ron and Ginny, finding out about the operations of the farm (having mostly magical creatures, but none he was familiar with), Harry liked to relax with a swim in the pool, and the others would join him there. All had swum in the pond at the Burrows, and Hermione had taken winter beach vacations with her parents, but this was the first indoor pool for any of them (Harry had to get over an initial fear of being attacked by merfolk, as had happened during the Tournament).

Hermione had introduced Ginny and Ron (and Mrs Weasley, to her initial shock) to muggle swimwear. The swimwear common in the magical world has gone out of date in the 'mundane' world by the late 1800's, and Molly could not bring herself to don a bikini (looking as she did, very fetching in a sleek white one-piece suit that made Arthur visibly drool and blush). Ginny, on the other hand, had alternated between a tight forest green one-piece, which set off her hair colour wonderfully, and a floral bikini which seemed to transfigure in coverage depending on how much she wanted Ron to gasp and Harry to blush.

There were days when, particularly if late in the evening after dinner and a couple of drinks, Harry would neglect to wear his swimming suit. One evening, Hermione and Ron left to go outside and look at the stars together (or so they said), Ginny suggested that their suits were unnecessary, and after removing hers, cuddled up to Harry. They found that being skin-to-skin felt very pleasant. Soon Ginny was sharing Harry's king-sized bed. Neither had 'lost' their virginity, as they both knew exactly where it had gone, and it had been given willingly as a gift, one to the other. A few days later, Harry presented her with a platinum ring with large ruby.

Come September, Ginny returned to Hogwarts for her final year. She had not been named Prefect or Head Girl, as Headmistress McGonagall (being a quidditch fanatic herself) explained that she feared that these administrative posts would interfere with Ginny's duties as the newly appointed Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, and also student assistant Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. Molly was thrilled with both of her daughter's appointments.

Harry stayed at the farm to help with the harvest (apples from the orchard, and barley from the fields) as well as learning about the magical breeds of livestock. He soon realized that Hagrid had had a fixation with very large dangerous creatures (other than Fang and baby dragons), and had largely neglected the smaller more domestic ones. The farm manager, Charles Brown ("call me Charlie", after Harry insisted of being called just 'Harry'), introduced him to the herd of cows (Swiss Browns) which produced chocolate milk, and the multi-legged and multi-winged chickens (the two breeds being in high demand for drumsticks and 'Buffalo' flavoured wings). When Harry first saw the eight-legged chickens, he asked how they tasted, and Charlie responded with the standard farmer-to-city-slicker joke, "Don't know, haven't managed to catch one yet."

As they laughed, Harry asked Charlie when he attended Hogwarts. Charlie scoffed and said "My kind would never get to go to that poncey school. I went to Agricola!"

Harry frowned. "Agricola? I've never heard of it."

Charlie nodded, and said "Harry, you come from one of the _OLD_ families, so you wouldn't have heard of it. It's all a matter of class system. The old families or the rich, the so-called 'High-borns', all get sent to Hogwarts, while us working-class types who can't afford the hundred galleon tuition are 'offered' Agricola. Even some who showed enough promise to go to Hogwarts, but were too poor were also given the option of Agricola, where we could do work-study programs. I, meself, worked my way through, helping with the animals."

"And where is a lad like me going to get 50 galleons for a bloody quidditch broom. To us low-born magical, quidditch is as far from reality as polo is to poor muggles!"

"Tell me, Harry, how many of the plants you studied in Herbology actually produced food, instead of being for potions? None, right? 'Potions' is an upper class thing for healers and teachers. And how many of Hagrid's big creatures were of any use as food? Also none." Actually feeding the people is _peasant_ work, not fit for the likes of the snotty offspring of the high-borns, even if we are as pure-blood as the any. Most graduates from Hogwarts would starve to death in a grocery store, because they wouldn't even recognise food if my kind or their house elves didn't put it in front of them ready to eat!

"Were any of your classmates from working-class or farming families? No. A lot of them were from the inbred upper crusts. Most of your friends were children of the professionals or civil servants. Your friend Hermione is the daughter of dentists, and your girlfriend's dad works at the Ministry. All, what they call 'white-collar' folks, none were 'blue-collar'."

"I have heard about that stupid hat that decides, as you walk into the castle as a child, where you are going to fit for the rest of your life. Well, the book of magical births does the same thing, only even younger. If you're from a family that gets its hands dirty, the book tells the Agricola people to send a letter, and if you're from the so-called 'quality', you get one from Hogwarts. The powers that be in the magical world make sure that, at least in the UK, the working classes are not going to get 'above themselves', by getting a top education."

"The Agricola school was set up by this Roman general who was one of the main guys in conquering Britain in the first century after Christ (his name actually means 'farmer', by the way). As a general, he knew that feeding his troops well was a key to good morale, so he set up a local school to teach the locals how to grow more and better food than they had been doing, and so in the Romanized areas, even the locals ate better. This helped the Romans pacify their holdings – word got out that if you accepted the Romans, you got better food, and tended to have a somewhat more comfortable life. A lot of the Roman officers were wizards, which was how they were so bloody successful."

"Over the years, the school became the place for wizards and witches who didn't mind getting their hands dirty with stuff besides the blood of their enemies. About a thousand years later, about the time the Normans took over, some of the upper class wizards decided they wanted something a bit more 'flash', and they set up Hogwarts for the fancy people."

"Now other countries don't have nearly the same class structure we have here in England. A lot of places, the magicals and the muggles mix pretty freely. For example, I hear you have an Irish friend who is a 'halfer', mother a pure-blood witch, dad a muggle. Here, the only pure-bloods who have any interaction with muggles are the lower castes like your friends the Weasleys. Usually, here, a halfer like your friend would be the product of a muggleborn magical, or a halfer themselves, or a low-caste purey."

"Harry, have you noticed how many of the high-caste kids at your school are the dumber ones?"

"Now, working on a farm, you see the effects of breeding in the livestock. You cross-breed animals for vitality and other traits, such as the milk production of cattle. Too much in-breeding weakens the stock. In my opinion, humble as it may be, that's what's happening to our so-called high-born folk, just as it happens to the muggle aristocracy. The only really bright ones are those who let a little muggle blood into the line every now and then!"

Harry thanked Charlie for this informative view on his world, which he had known nothing about, and said he would definitely have something to think on. After this chat, Harry continued exploring the estate.

He found himself becoming fascinated by the bees and butterflies which frequented the gardens. Growing up doing gardening at the Dursley house, he was familiar with the tiny insects, but had usually been too busy to really pay attention to them. As he loved flying himself, he found the little creatures interesting, and when Charlie told him about the life cycle of the insects, he found a sense of wonder for them. Although non-magical in the sense that Harry knew, the fact that an ugly worm-like thing could change into a beautiful flying creature was as magical as anything he had ever encountered, and certainly as marvellous as the large creatures that Hagrid had introduced him to.

At first, Harry attended Ginny's practices, and sometimes made suggestions, but he soon found that she had the team well in hand. He had been drafted by the Edinburgh Tartans professional team, and between the farm and the team, he just didn't have the time to attend her practices, and she really didn't need his help. He did attend the games when he could, given his own playing schedule. These occasions became fewer and fewer.

Ginny soon found that, in Harry's absence, she was no longer being seen as Harry's girlfriend, but as Ginny Weasley, star quidditch player, school beauty, and popular girl. She started to notice that she had a lot of friends for her own sake. She found that she loved the attention, and with her prankish nature, used the opportunity for flirt harmlessly, always in a joking manner. She also noticed that word had gotten around about her 'fortune', but as a girl coming from a poor family, she was on her guard against the predators and moochers. Ginny was becoming a self-confident, beautiful young woman who could look after herself, and did.

Coming up to a game in January, some of the team told Ginny that there were some professional quidditch players visiting the school, and wanting to attend the game. She though little of it, as there were always scouts showing up in the latter half of the year to eye out the prospects. Then she was called into McGonagall's office to be introduced to eight people, including two women from the Holyhead Harpies organization, one from the Chudley Cannons (the team that had drafted Ron) and a couple other teams from the English league. Scuttlebutt was that Hogwarts students were often taken into the English league before being tested for the international teams.

Ginny was asked which players she thought the scouts should keep their eyes on, as she was more familiar with the teams. She thought for a moment, and then suggested Michael Bulstrode of Slytherin (a beater with a very nasty aim – she had had a lot of trouble dodging bludgers that he had directed her way), Amy Forthness (an agile chaser from Hufflepuff), and a number of others. The scouts thanked her for her advice, and said they would certainly keep and eye out for these students.

As the scouts left, Minerva McGonagall asked why Ginny had not mentioned herself. Ginny said, "I've played with Ron on the Gryffindor team during the year a couple years ago, before the troubles, and I played pickup games with Harry, Ron George, Bill and Viktor Krum at home during the summers. I'm just not in their league." The professor shook her head, "Don't sell yourself short, girl. You're easily as good on your broom as your brothers, any of them – I've seen them all. You may not be the strategist that Ron is, but you're quick, agile and smart. And your eyesight is better than Harry's."

"Now, Krum. Well, that boy is remarkable. I don't know of any other player who made a national team while still in school. But then, Bulgaria is a small country that has had a lot of religious wars – our kind don't do so well in wars where both side think burning witches alive is the way to get to heaven."

"And Ginny, I have to say this, although it is a bit degrading to be judged on your appearance rather than your skills, but welcome to being a girl. You are a very attractive young woman, and the professional teams are always on the lookout for 'eye candy'. If you remember Millicent Bulstrode in Ron's year – she was easily as good as her younger brother, but she would never get picked for a pro team, poor thing. Don't be surprised if they ask you to 'go pro', and don't be astonished if part of the job is posing for pictures, and _not_ in your quidditch gear. And I have to tell you that muggle swimwear and undergarments are a good deal more revealing than is typical in the wizarding world, although I suspect that with your friendship with Hermione Granger, you might already be aware of this."

"When I played for the Glasgow Kippers in the late 50's, the girls on the team all posed for a calendar – I still have one or two copies lying around. It was pretty innocent by today's standards, but very risqué at the time. Ah, I was a braw lass in those days." Ginny snickered and said, "It sound more like you were bra-less in those days." Ginny had never seen the professor burst into laughter before, and she saw the cheerful young girl still lurking inside the dour Scot.

The following day, after the game, Ginny was approached by the two Harpies who offered her a position as a reserve chaser and seeker on the all-female team; if she accepted, she would be expected at training camp in July after graduation. She was also offered similar positions on two other teams. She decided to join the Harpies, as they had been her favourite team since childhood.

Ginny had always been a bit of a slob when it came to housekeeping, so Harry 'loaned' her one of his female elves (Florrie) to help her out, knowing that as a professional player, she would not have as much free time for domestic chores.

That fall, Harry and Hermione went to Australia to retrieve her parents. Harry had asked for a couple months off from the team, for personal reasons, and the Tartans reluctantly granted it. Before he left, he and Ginny spent the weekend together, talking over plans. Both noticed later that their plans seemed to assume that the other would be by their side, but none of the plans really required the other to be there. Almost unnoticed, she and Harry were drifting apart.

The Harpies soon found their new recruit's skills as a chaser were good enough for second-string, but her skills as a seeker soon moved her up to the first line. Whether it was from watching and playing with Harry and Viktor Krum, or her innate abilities and smaller figure giving her a shorter turning radius, or her training in the DA and combat experience, she was found to be an exceptional addition to the team. At first, the sports press speculated that Harry had 'bought' his girlfriend her place on the team, but it quickly became apparent that she was a force to be reckoned with on her own. Ginny loved the attention the press gave her, and when the infamous calendar was published (with her broom held very careful and her chaser's gloves discretely positioned) she was thrilled with the reactions of the sporting public, and the fact that Ron was dragging his jaw on the ground for a week.

When PlayWizard magazine asked her to pose for them, minus the broom and gloves, Ron of course was horrified at what his baby sister was going to do. Harry looked unhappy, but said "If that's what you want to do, go ahead. You're a big girl." Ginny laughed and cupped her hands under her breasts, saying, "And don't you forget it!" She then smirked and prankishly said "You just don't want other guys seeing what had been your private view." Harry said softly and sadly, "That's not it at all, Gin, I just think they are using you. I have been 'used' all my life, and I hate it. I just don't want it to happen to you too." Ginny didn't see the sadness behind his eyes.

Harry was not thrilled with the press following them around everywhere, but was quite happy when the papers quit calling Ginny Harry's girlfriend and started referring to him as Ginny's boyfriend. Fortunately, unlike for other celebrities, the press was unable to come up with a hybrid name for the pair (Giaary, and Hinny just didn't work). The more attention _she_ got, the less they had time to bother _him_.

As a seeker, Ginny needed to wear thinner gloves than as a chaser, as a snitch was harder to hold than a quaffle. It was only later that she thought about the irony, that putting on the seeker's gloves really moved her away from being under Harry's influence. It was also only later that she noticed the symbolism of having to remove Harry's ring when she put on her gloves.

The final break came when, in a game against the Tartans, Ginny outflew Harry and caught the snitch. A week before the game, Ginny had stayed over at Harry's manor, and he told her about his wanting to do something more significant with his life than play games in front of drunken fans. She was just starting to do something that she had dreamed of for most of her life. As they made love, both had a strange feeling that this would be their last time.

After the game, some of the sports reporters accused Harry of throwing the game in favour of his girlfriend. He became furious, saying "I finish what I start. She was better than me today, that's all."

One reporter asked if he and Ginny were having a falling out. When Harry glared at her, the reporter said "The public have a right to know!" Harry spun to stare at the reporter and yelled "In our world, the public have no rights! The powerful people give us games like this to keep us complacent, while they play their corrupt political power games." He knew this comment would never make it into the papers, as it was something sports reporters and fans were not interested in hearing.

The reporters then asked whether Harry thought his skills were deteriorating, due to his absence for a couple of months. Harry pulled off his team jersey, threw it at them, said "I guess they are!", and walked away from quidditch. Ginny was stunned by this action.

With reporter clamouring to talk to him about the departure from the game, Harry didn't attend any of Ginny's games for months, and then only in disguise. By the time he came out in the open again, they both had moved on.

In April, while the apple blossoms were being visited by the myriad bees and promising an abundant harvest, Florrie the elf arrived back at the Manor, saying that Molly Weasley had recovered enough that she had sent Ginny one of the Weasley elves (acquired as part of the war reparations and as part of the reward for Molly's Order of Merlin), and Ginny wouldn't be needing Florrie any more. On May Day, while the larks and blackbirds were busily feeding their newly hatched chicks, an owl arrived at the manor carrying a small box. It contained the ring he had given to Ginny.


	2. Reevaluation: Ron and Hermione

**Re-evaluations: Ron and Hermione**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

Hermione Granger started thinking of what to take in college during her second year at Hogwarts. She had always known in her very bones that she would go to college and graduate with high marks. It was just not a question.

About Christmas of her second year, she made an appointment with Professor Minerva McGonagall, who was her Head of House and hence, her surrogate mother. Hermione was rather horrified to find that there was no such thing as a university for the magical, as Hogwarts was a secondary school for the gifted. All higher learning was done through a system of apprenticeships, so if you wanted to become a Healer, you apprenticed with a Master Healer at a hospital like St Mungo's. The idea of a general interest degree or multiple majors appeared to be completely foreign to the magical culture.

As the magical tended to live longer lives than their mundane counterparts, the state of learning and innovations were much slower than in the 'outside' world. This was exemplified by that fact that fashions among the magical seemed to Hermione stuck in the late 1800's, with everyone dressed in long robes. Hermione and her dorm-mates had many evenings giggling over magical versus muggle fashions, when Hermione brought fashion magazines from home. The other girls were shocked and rather intrigued by muggle underwear for women - the ones for men tended to be less 'interesting' as boys 'old-style' underwear and modern boxers were quite similar (at least the ones in the magazines, as most of the girls had only seen their brothers' underwear, and not what older boys and men would wear when they wanted to impress).

Hermione and some of the other muggle-born girls took to referring to the underwear available at the school's commissary as being from the 'Queen Victoria's Secret' catalogue, a joke that was completely missed by their less aware classmates.

Hermione was also besieged by her dorm-mates at 'that time of the month' for feminine hygiene supplies which were completely unavailable at the Hogwarts store, or in Hogsmeade, having only been invented in the early 1900's. As the school year went on, and the 'dormitory effect' came into stronger force (synchronizing the cycles of the female population), Hermione got into the habit of having her mother send her several cases of such items. She had to explain to her mother that this request was for supplies for the almost the entire female population of the school, excluding the Slytherins who wouldn't be caught dead using 'muggle stuff' no matter how useful, and that there was nothing drastically or medically wrong with her herself. By adding a small mark-up, Hermione kept herself in pocket money.

While thus building up additional funds towards her academic future, Hermione pondered what she wanted to do, and hence what courses would be appropriate to take. She had thought of something medical, like her parents (both dentists), but as she saw more and more or the inequalities and unfairness of the wizarding world, as well as the pure-blood nonsense that was affecting Harry Potter, she thought that a career in the law might be to her tastes. She had no interest in the enforcement end of the law, but might find the forensic aspect an interesting field combining both the medical and the legal.

Given these thoughts, Hermione applied herself to potions, spells and spell detection, arithmancy and ancient runes, while she dismissed Divination as a load of unicorn droppings.

On top of her academic work, she spent a lot of her time with the two boys who seemed initially to be emotional disasters. Harry Potter had been an abused child, underfed, wearing hand-me-down clothes from a much larger cousin, and burdened by an unearned reputation as a monster killer – he attracted trouble like a lightning rod. Ron Weasley came from the only large wizarding family that Hermione had heard of, being the last of six brothers, with one younger sister – he seemed to feel that he only existed because his parents wanted a daughter very badly, as they had stopped having children once his sister arrived on the scene.

Hermione had originally had her own social problems, being a muggle-born, and so discriminated against by about half of the so-called 'pure-bloods', and extremely bright, and so being ostracised by her less academically-minded classmates. She was spoiled a bit by her parents, and so could be quite bossy, a trait that did not go over well with her classmates either in primary school or at Hogwarts.

The three children seemed destined to be together, and after an encounter with a troll that had been let into the school, they became fast friends. As Professor McGonagall explained to her, Hermione incurred a life-debt to Harry Potter, as he was the instigator of her rescue. Ron had helped defeat the beast, but as he not been the one to decide that she needed to be rescued, the same magical obligation did not apply for the troll 'incident'. However, due to later events, all three had multiple life-debts to one other.

The three spent a lot of time together (with few other really close friends at the school) and it seemed obvious that Hermione would end up with one of them in a male-female relationship. Hermione's temperament was more suited to Harry, but Ron was a brave and clever boy as well. Furthermore, over the years, it became frighteningly apparent that someone was trying (repeatedly) to kill Harry, so as Ron seemed much more likely to survive whatever the future held, Hermione set her heart on the redhead.

Ron Weasley had two major passions in his life, food and the game of quidditch. Coming from a large family, headed by a minor civil servant, money was tight, but his mother had always made sure that the family ate well. This fact left very little for frivolities, and Ron wore hand-me-downs from his two twin brothers. His mother was very adept in adjusting clothing so things fit well, but as the twins had received some of their clothes from the next brother up the line, the wear did show. Of course when little Ginny arrived, boys' cast-offs were not adequate (among other things, not being frilly), and the girl got new clothes from the big-box store (WarlockMart) near town. This, of course, added to Ron's sense of not really being that important to the family.

Ron and Hermione had a tempestuous relationship. They were just very different people.

He loved quidditch; she tolerated it more out of house loyalty and watching her friends than any specific interest. Once it was apparent that someone was trying to harm Harry by jinxing his broom, she assisted in invoking counter-charms, as she was present in the stands.

Hermione was an only child, and rather bossy, while Ron had grown up under the less-than-kindly attentions of his twin older brothers – he hated being bossed around, and he hated his siblings pulling pranks on him. When his little sister turned out to be a prankster as well, his mother's injunction to 'protect your little sister' was distinctly unappreciated.

Ron was academically lazy, while Hermione was a devoted student. Hermione was a picky eater who enjoyed good well-prepared food, while Ron was on the 'see-food' diet (see food, eat!). Ron was an easy-going friendly sort, while Hermione could be very judgemental and intolerant of opinions she did not share.

Half of the time, Ron and Hermione shared a quiet friendship, and the other half, they were screaming at each other. There were times when Harry and the two would share stories and thoughts and dreams, and others when Harry left them fighting.

As they grew up, it became apparent that Ron's little sister had her eye on Harry (spurred on by her mother's stories of the 'Boy-who-lived', a title that Harry hated), and he seemed to be fond of her as well. This left Hermione pining for Ron, who seemed oblivious to her developing beauty – for years, she had been a friend and companion, and he just had not thought of her in terms of a future romantic interest (or even as a girl).

The fact that she was rather plain when young, and Ron's hormones were rather obviously set off by physical beauty (such as his French-born sister-in-law) diverted Ron's attention away from her, which hurt Hermione all the more. She had never thought of herself as good-looking, given cutting comments by other girls (jealous of her brains) and pretended it didn't matter to her, all the while crying inside. As she grew, and her face became more angular with a more mature demeanour, Hermione became a very good-looking young lady.

When Ron started to notice that his other best friend had become an attractive young woman, she was there waiting for him.

The summer after the battle, Hermione wanted to study to make up her coursework for admission into a muggle university (if she chose that route) and checking out possible mentors if she went the magical route. Travelling with Harry gave an opportunity for both.

Having lost a favourite brother in the battle, Ron wanted to go for long walks, often in silent tears. Hermione walked with him most of the time, but often found herself wanting to be elsewhere studying and learning.

When Ron was drafted by the Chudley Cannons quidditch team, he was ecstatic. While Hermione was delighted that Ron had achieved a lifelong dream, she was not thrilled with the prospect of being expected to sit in the stands in cold weather, watching a game she cared very little about.

While travelling with Harry and Ginny (at Harry's expense) to visit his properties, they became lovers, as much by default and because that it was expected as the logical next step, as from genuine passionate desire. They had lost so many friends in the war, and they had lost Fred (Hermione had come to think of the twins as her brothers as well, over the years). They both found their sorely needed comfort in each other's arms.

About the time that Ron's first professional game was to be played, Hermione was finishing he Secondary school equivalency tests, and was looking forward to entering the University of London's pre-medical program, while working part-time at St Mungo's under a Master Healer. With these schedules, they saw little of each other for weeks at a time. When Ron had time off from practicing or playing, Hermione would have papers to write or shift work, and vice versa.

The following summer, Hermione worked at St Mungo's full time, and took some summer courses, as she and Harry were planning to retrieve her parents in time for Christmas. She felt that having them gone for two years now was about all she could stand, and any longer would make it difficult to re-integrate them into English society. She didn't even know if they would want to come back, or whether they would forgive her for the memory modification she had applied to keep them out of harm's way (and to spare them the feeling of loss if their only child did not survive the war), even if it was with their consent. This planned excursion coincided with the quidditch fall schedule, so Ginny and Ron could not accompany them. Harry had asked for time off, and his team manager had grudgingly granted it, knowing that he had been lucky to get Harry in the first place.

The weekend before they left for Australia, Ron and Hermione had dinner together at an upscale restaurant near St Mungo's. It catered to a mixed clientele, having disillusion charms so that the muggle patrons would not notice some of the more unusual methods of preparing the food. They held each other's hands across the table, and both said, simultaneously, "I don't think this is working for us". They looked surprised at the joint declaration, and then laughed in relief. Hermione said "Ron, I didn't want to hurt you", and he responded "And I didn't want to hurt you either".

Hermione bit her lip and said, "Ron, I need someone who feels that what I want to do is important". He nodded and replied "And I think I need someone who thinks what I do is important too. And we just aren't there for each other, are we?" Hermione sadly shook her head "No Ron, we're not. I love you dearly, but I don't think I am _in love_ with you. And I am sorry to say, that after years of trying, honestly trying, I don't care for quidditch."

Ron nodded sadly. "So, what do we do now? You have some of your stuff at my place in Chudley, and I have stuff at your flat in London. Shall we straighten things up tonight, or leave it until tomorrow?"

Hermione said "How about we do it tonight? That way, it's clean. Let's head over to your place first, and then go to my place for your things. That way, you can see me home safely, one last time."

As Ron left Hermione's apartment carrying the box of things (magically reduced in size to fit in his pocket, underwear and a toothbrush not taking much room), he turned and gave her a powerful hug, and said "Hermione, if there is ever anything you need, just call. You will always be my best friend." As she began to cry, Hermione said "And if you need anything, Ron, I'm here for you too." As they released their hug, they simultaneously looked into each other's eyes and said, "I guess this is it then. Goodbye."

Ron stepped into Hermione's fireplace, tossing in the floo powder and said "Ron's place" and disappeared. As he vanished, Hermione broke down in tears, knowing Ron was doing the same. While she cried, she started sorting out her eleven boxes of books that she had brought 'home'.

The next day, Harry received two owls. He recognised the handwriting on each as being from his best friends, but could not read them as the ink had run with the tears. He returned a note to each saying that he was there for them, whatever he could do. He sat by his fireplace, wondering what he could have done to help his friends more, or even if there was something he could have done. He knew he could not drop everything and go comfort Hermione, as Ron might see that as Harry trying to take what Ron couldn't have (Ron had always been jealous, a fact that had long puzzled Harry who had been jealous of what Ron had, namely a loving family). He couldn't go to Ron right away, as Ron needed his space and his pride, as much as his other friend needed her space and pride.

He was also questioning the disquiet in his own heart.


	3. Concerning Elves

**Concerning Elves, Bigotry and Humility**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

**A/N:** The plot bunnies ganged up on me and insisted that I write an extended version of this chapter. I had not intended to do so, as the story arc did not require it. However, they were very insistent, so there is an alternate version, which is published separately. The bruises on my shins, from the group of bunnies kicking me, are healing nicely, thank you.

As a consequence of the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter and his friends found that they were the owners, or rather keepers, of a number of house elves. Most of these came as property by right of conquest in battle, but some were considered, under the wizarding laws, as part of the property confiscated from the Death Eater families in reparations for the damages and harm they had done.

As most of the Death Eaters had pledged their lives and their wealth to Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter received numerous properties, including the bound house elves who came with the properties. During the year that Harry would later refer to as the 'Year of Travel', he consulted with the elves at each property, and came up with a rough organization, where the elves at each location would keep up the maintenance, until Harry could figure out what to do with all the properties he had inherited and those he had acquired by conquest. He had each elf report in weekly to Bruce, the principal elf at the Potter Manor. Each month, he would have a meeting with all forty-five of the elves, and try to deal with issues which came up.

Hermione and Ron each gained possession of three elves, one of which came with the stipend attached to the Order of Merlin, while two others had been owned by Death Eaters which had not been pledged to Voldemort. This fact mortified Hermione, but as she was studying for entrance exams, while travelling with Harry and attending funerals and ceremonies, having some assistance was handy – she planned to free them once she got around to it, which she hoped to be in the fall once she started university.

As she had killed Bellatrix Lestrange in a one-on-one fight, Molly Weasley found herself to be the someone less-than-proud 'owner' of the three house elves that had still been owned by the Lestrange family. During the summer after the Battle, and Fred's funeral (among many others), having the helpful extra hands allowed Molly to continue functioning on days when she just wanted to put her head down and cry her life away. The elves' personalities were not poisoned the way Kreacher's was at Grimmauld Place (largely as the LeStranges had been imprisoned for so long that their elves dealings with other elves had brought them back to a more normal temperment), and they soon fit into the Weasley household

One Saturday afternoon in October, the fall after the battle, Harry was sitting in his living room at the Manor, when he heard Hermione's voice coming from the fireplace, which was filled with the green flames of a floo call. His friend's voice had a panicked shrieking character that Harry had only heard a couple times when Hermione was in serious distress.

He answered that he was there, and she cried out "Harry, do not free your elves!" As this was a drastic change from what she had been saying for several years, he asked her why. She asked if she could come over and explain, to which he agreed. An instant later Hermione lunged out of the fireplace into his arms, sobbing so hard that she was having trouble breathing and standing.

As he held her up, she looked at him with a terrified look in her eyes, and said again, "Harry, do not under any circumstances free an elf!"

He asked what happened to cause her to change her opinion so much.

She looked him in the eyes, and asked "Harry, have you ever watched an elf commit suicide? Because I just did!"

In his surprise, Harry almost dropped the young witch onto the floor, but recovered enough to move them both over to the couch where he had been sitting. He sat her down and called for one of his elves to get her a glass of water. Hermione shook her head and asked "Brandy, please. For 'medicinal purposes'." Harry had never seen Hermione drink any liquor stronger than butterbeer, and knew that whatever had happened had been a life-changing experience for her, and not a good one.

He asked quietly, "'Mione, what happened? Should I call Ron to get over here?" He figured this sounded like something that her boyfriend needed to be present to hear.

Hermione shook her head vigorously. "Not yet. Not until after I tell you the whole story. I don't think Ron would want to hear the whole thing."

This puzzled Harry even more. The trio had been through battles together and had been on the run in fear for their lives. What could be so awful that Ron shouldn't hear it? He agreed that he would listen, and then call Ron (who had a game on at the moment and was probably incommunicado anyway).

He asked her, "What's wrong with freeing elves? I freed Dobby."

Hermione shook her head, "No you didn't! Not really."

Harry looked at her "I clearly remember Dobby saying he was free, and when we spoke to him about being free, he agreed with us. I am confused."

The woman nodded, "He meant he was free of the Malfoys. Not _free_ free! I remember you told me that you had put one of your socks in Voldemort's diary, and then Malfoy senior gave the book to Dobby. Right?" Harry nodded.

"What _that_ accomplished was that ownership of Dobby passed from Malfoy to you! Dobby was bound to you personally; that's why he was delighted with any task you gave him, even the one that almost killed him. It pleased you to pay him for his service, so he was pleased to accept the money, as it served your need to feel that he was not a slave. When an elf is given clothing by his or her master that belongs to another person, that transfers ownership. It is only when the owner gives clothing that either belongs to herself, or is not owned by anyone personally (such as in a shop), that the elf is freed from all bondage."

Harry was puzzled. "The elves at my castle wear Black Clan livery. Isn't that a personal item? Wouldn't that free them?"

The young witch shook her head. "Livery is considered to be part of the castle's property. It is not a personal item of yours."

Harry asked, "Okay, but what is wrong with being free?"

Hermione looked at him with sad eyes. "An elf that is completely free is an outcast to all other elves. You remember when we learned about the Japanese feudal system with the samurai class? Elves work on a similar system. Within elf society, and yes there is elf society, an elf who is dismissed from service is considered to be unfit for any service. An elf's life _is_ service. To be dismissed is to be told that they are less than an elf and this, just like with a dismissed samurai, is a shame too much to live with! They are disgraced, they will never be accepted by other elves. So they commit suicide. I just saw it."

Harry asked "Okay, Hermione, tell me what happened. Don't leave anything out. And why don't you want Ron here.

His bushy-haired friend took a long pull on her glass of brandy, and began. "I'm not sure I am ready for Ron to hear some of it. And I am not entirely sure I am ready to tell him some of it."

Hermione grimaced and said, "For one thing, I'm still pretty embarrassed by some of what happened, and some of it is not what a boyfriend would want to hear." Harry's eyebrows rose at the implications of this revelation, but then she continued "And I am completely, thoroughly ashamed of what happened, _and why_. Harry, at the end of the day, you're my best friend, and can see things more clearly without the 'boy-girl' aspect confusing the issues, and you have more elves. We discussed freeing all of the elves, yours, mine and Ron's, although Ron wasn't as keen – he likes having the servants to clean up after him."

"Anyway, a few days ago I decided that it was time to start freeing my elves, the ones I got through the battle awards, et cetera, et cetera. I decided to free Mikey first, he was the male elf, who had been a body servant, rather than a domestic. I was quite uncomfortable getting out of the shower and having this male elf help me dress, or watching me undress before the shower. Somehow, having female elves around when I am undressed was not as disconcerting. It's amazing how I can get out a shower _nude_, but the second a male sees me, I am _naked_."

Harry smiled a wicked smile and raised his eyebrows. Hermione smiled slightly through her tears, and said "You wish! Not going to happen. Anyway..."

"If you remember, last Thursday was kind of warm, and I was wearing a shirt and pleated skirt, and sandals without stockings or socks. I had been studying, and was taking a break when I thought, 'No time like the present'."

"I called Mikey over to present him with a piece of clothing, and then realized I didn't have anything with me. As he had seen me naked, I figured 'What the hell?', so I reached under my skirt, pulled down my knickers and handed them to him."

"He looked up at me stunned, and started crying. He pleaded 'Please mistress, no! I will be a good elf! I didn't mean to displease you! Please don't dismiss me. Don't throw me out and set me free! Please tell me what you want me to do and what you want me not to do. I will be a better elf! Please don't make me free! Please!"

"I said that I planned to free all my elves. Marthe and Janie (my other two) started crying and sobbing loudly. All three begged me not to set them free. I said I was going to set them free because it was good to be free."

"Mikey cried 'Not for an elf!' He looked at my panties in his hand, and fell to his knees crying. He wiped his tears away with my pants, and screamed, 'You freed me. I cannot be an elf anymore. I cannot live if I am not an elf'. And with that, he dropped my knickers on the floor, held up his hands and changed them into knives. He took one, and stuck it in his abdomen, slicing himself open from chest to crotch. As he did this, he took the other, and cut his own head off."

"I stood there for a moment, and then threw up all over myself and the little corpse, over and over until I was completely empty, and still continued to retch. Finally, Janie and Marthe picked me up, cleaned me off and put me into bed, holding my head and giving me sips of water as I cried and cried."

"Finally, I was sufficiently calm to ask them to explain. They told me that it was an unbearable shame for an elf to be freed. It was too much to live with, as they were now an outcast from all other elves. Their lives were effectively over, so they kill themselves."

"Apparently, if you demand that an elf do something they are not _capable_ of doing, they will happily die trying, sort of dying honourably in the line of duty. But if you demand one of your bound elves to do something which is despicable and beyond what they consider morally acceptable, they cannot disobey, so they will kill themselves instead. Remember all those elf heads at Grimmauld Place? Those were elves who had been ordered by old Lady Black to do something that even they could not tolerate, so they committed suicide, cutting off their heads. The demented old hag had the heads mounted as trophies, showing how she had 'bested' the 'lesser beings'"

"Harry, I just made an elf kill himself because I thought I knew what was best for them. I was so sure of myself, so full of myself, that I did not even ask how the elves felt about things. Me, the compulsive researcher, _didn't ever bother to ask or find out_!"

"Harry, I had the same arrogance, the same 'so-sure-of-herself'ness, the same bigotry towards other creatures that we have been fighting for years."

"I'm no better than the Death Eaters! I'm not sure I can live with that knowledge. The only thing I can do is tell everyone I know the story so they do not make the same mistake." She thought of what she was going to tell Ron, and smiled slightly through her sobbing, "Well, maybe not all of the story.

Harry held her while she cried for the next five hours. He knew he needed Hermione to be able to, if not forgive herself, at least come to terms with the terrible mistake, and he knew it would take time. He knew that, in her eyes, being stupid was unforgivable, and hurting someone who was essentially innocent was also unforgivable.

He reached down and took off his socks, and handed them to her. She looked at them and asked "Are you sending me away? Are you freeing me?" and burst out crying again. He kissed the top of her head, and said "No, Hermione, I would never, I _will_ never send you away. Give these to your two elves. You know I will not mistreat them, and you won't have the constant reminder."

Hermione shook her head. "If I am going to deal with this, if I am going to learn to live with myself, I can't hide from it. I have to face it. I can do this, or at least I can try. I owe it to Janie and Marthe to tell them I am sorry, that I did not understand that my ways are not the same as their ways, and that I made a terrible, terrible mistake. I have to beg their forgiveness. I have to pull out my Gryffindor courage, and live with my shame."

Harry hugged her, and said "That's my Hermione!"

She cuddled up into his hug, then smiled slightly and said, "By the way, your socks stink."

Two days after what became known to Harry and his circle as 'The Elf Incident', Harry and Hermione met with Minerva McGonagall and Horace Meadows, the head of the Agricola School.

Harry started the meeting by saying "I assume that no introductions are required, as you two know each other."

As the two looked at Harry, puzzled and shaking their heads, Harry smiled a prankish smile and did the honours. "No? Well, then. Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, I would very much like you to meet Horace Meadows, Principal of the Agricola School of Magical Arts. Mr Meadows, Professor McGonagall."

The two shook hands, and turned to Harry for an explanation for this unusual meeting.

Harry smiled and said, "I am sorry to have to spring this surprise onto you both, but I believe I have just demonstrated what I see as a serious weakness in our society. Our society is so fragmented due to the class structure that the heads of the two finest schools for the magically gifted in the UK don't even know each other."

Minerva looked at Harry in shock. She had heard rumours that there was a school for some of the wizards and witches who didn't attend Hogwarts, but to hear Harry speak of it on the same terms as Hogwarts was akin to dancing on her grave.

Harry looked at his former Head of House with a contrite look on his face. He said "Professor, I mean no disrespect for Hogwarts, as I have and always will love the school. It was my first true home. But I am part of a larger world now, and I find that the ignorance of what else is out there is, I think, a severe impediment to the improvement of our society. I believe that ignorance is the root of bigotry and hatred. My relatives were ignorant of the magical world, and wanted, in their narrow-mindedness, to keep it that way. If they could have done so, they would have exterminated all magical people, just as Voldemort and his Death Eaters were keen to exterminate all who did not share their narrow-mined view. In muggle societies around the world, this same scenario has played out over and over and over. I believe that education is the way to combat this."

"I have been given the rare privilege, and perhaps, responsibility, to do something about it. My godfather's will told me to take his fortune and do some good in the world, and I mean to be true to his wishes."

"Now, I have some ideas which I would like you both to hear. There is an old saying that 'Exhilaration is the feeling you get between the time you have a brilliant idea, and others point out the obvious flaws in it'. I would very much appreciate you two esteemed educators taking a listen, and pointing out the flaws, and if possible ways to make it a better plan, or really plans."

"First, I would like to tell you a short story. There was once a young pure-blood witch named Merope Gaunt. She was a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, a fact that her father thought of paramount importance. Like many pure-bloods, he believed that the fact of his descent proved that he was better than everyone else on earth, and entitled him to great respect and fortune. In reality, he had neither, as he was a nasty brutish man who abused his daughter, at least emotionally, if not physically. She was treated as his personal servant, and was not allowed to stray too far from the house, much less attend school. When it came time for her to go to Hogwarts, he refused to let her go, because her leaving would lose him his unpaid servant, he would lose control over the one person or thing that was under his thumb, and because there was no spare money for the tuition."

"Merope fell into an infatuation for a rich muggle named Tom Riddle, who was the local squire's son. By way of a love potion, Merope gained his affection, and she became pregnant. She thought that this would guarantee Riddle's love, and ceased administering her potions, at which point he abandoned her. After further abuse from her father, as much for consorting with a muggle as for getting pregnant by him (and so limiting her usefulness to him as a potential bargaining chip in pure-blood societal politics), she ran off to London, where she gave birth of a boy. She died in childbirth after naming the boy 'Tom Marvolo Riddle', after her father and his."

The boy, who was destined to become a powerful wizard, grew up in a muggle orphanage. He grew up mean, and abused the other children when he found he could make them do things through his powers. Professor Dumbledore sought the boy out when it came time for him to enter Hogwarts (as a descendant of Slytherin, his name was at the top of the list that year). As he learned more magic, he became more and more powerful, but his personality was already fixed. He revelled in control and power, and took to the Dark Arts. After graduation, he altered the letters of his name, and called himself 'Lord Voldemort'. We know what followed from that." Harry tapped the remnants of the lightning-shaped scar still clearly visible on his forehead

Harry turned to Minerva and said "I believe you knew Tom when you were in school." She nodded, "Aye. A thoroughly nasty piece of work, he, from the time he was a firstie. I was two years ahead of him, and when I was a prefect, he was one of the primary sources of trouble in the school."

Harry nodded. "Due to the kind administrations of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, I and many others became orphans. Both magical and muggle. He liked to kill, and gave his followers free rein to do the same.

He said, "My first plan, such as it is to this point, is to set a residential school or group of schools for magical orphans, plus a team of roving teachers for those whose family conditions allow or require them to be taught at home. I intend to take some of the money I have inherited, and provide support for those who need it, including the salaries of the teachers, and tuition fees where needed. I would also support a roving cadre of aurors to check for child abuse, such as she suffered."

"I would like to call the school the 'Merope Gaunt Memorial School', because I think if she had been given better support, and allowed an education without digging into her family's limited finances, a lot of grief could have been prevented. In a way, I have come to see her as Voldemort's first victim, and the bigotry and hatred he came to embody was a direct result of both her father's treatment of her, and his own father's rejection of her whom he saw as an unschooled and largely unwashed peasant. The social and blood bigotry came from both sides of his heritage."

"My idea, further, it that attendance at Hogwarts or Agricola should not be restricted by family ties, social level or class boundaries, but by ability, temperment, and interests. I also think that by both schools working together, we will reduce the narrow-mindedness which is so prevalent, and maybe even improve the quality of our educational system through the sharing of ideas and practices. For example, I am sure that Madame Sprout's expertise in Herbology would be of great help to the farming practices at Agricola, and their methods of crop production would increase the yield of her potion ingredients, thus benefiting both schools and our society in general."

"Anyhow, that's my plan. What do you think?"

The two elders looked at each other, and nodded. Both saw the potential benefits of Harry's plan, but also saw that they had several hundred years of separation to overcome to make it work. Casting some surreptitious glances that the younger man beside them, they also recognised that this was something that was going to happen, with them or without them. Harry had defeated Voldemort in battles on the physical field of blood and dirt, and they could see that he would not be satisfied until he had defeated his ideas and doctrine in the minds of their world as well.

They had a lot of work to do.

The two school heads were then surprised when Harry continued. They had thought the business of the day was done.

Harry smiled and said, "I am also going to invest in, or set up, all-inclusive tropical holiday camps for magical people. These will be available for all magical, humans, elves, goblins and any others. They will _not_ be restricted to just those who attended Hogwarts, or Agricola, or skipped out on school altogether. They will be places where all magical can meet and interact on an equal non-discriminatory basis. Anyone who wants to bring their purist beliefs will find their welcome a bit colder. Actually, I might suggest putting a charm on the places so that certain topics become less interesting to talk about. There is a muggle saying that you should not discuss wither religion or politics, if you want to have a quiet evening. Something like that."

"I also think that we could arrange some sort of financial support for those whose situations are a bit stretched. I need to figure out some way of doing this so it doesn't appear to be charity or demeaning to those who would need it. The camps would have free floo connections as part of the package. Perhaps we could come up with some on-the-job training courses which could qualify for educational subsidies from the Ministry, or something like that – underwater welding using gillyweed, or something. Kind of like the work-study programs at Agricola, only if someone takes a course, their family gets to come along for a holiday.

"I have a couple spots picked out tentatively in Australia, Brazil, and French Polynesia, with some other alternatives as well. We could offer language courses in Portuguese, French, Polynesian, and Australian (which, trust me, is _not_ English from what I've heard), towards jobs in the travel agency businesses. We might have courses in tropical Herbology, fish and wildlife, and so on."

Minerva and Horace both looked at Harry and asked, "Why did you choose the locations you mentioned? There are holiday camps all over the world in all sorts of places."

Harry smiled. "I am planning to honour my godfather's directions again in doing some social good, and also have a little fun with his name. All the locations I mentioned are located at sixteen degrees forty-two minutes fifty eight seconds south latitude, directly under the star Sirius. I think he would like that. Now because of my inheritances, I know I have property in all of these places, which I could convert into the camps."

Minerva asked "Nothing in Africa? We have a lot of wizarding folks with their family roots in Africa. Might be nice."

Harry nodded, "Not yet, but a very good idea. Thanks. I haven't made it through the all the list of stuff I inherited, so I will have to check, or else I can invest in some places. I have heard the coast of Kenya near Mombasa is beautiful, and the word 'Zanzibar' just has an exotic sound I like."

"However, so far, I'm just trying to get some ideas on whether the concept would be a good one or not. I want a place where magical people can get together and relax on an equal footing, without class or social distinctions as much as possible. Now, _that_ may be the first hard part."

"The second hard part for a lot of our people is that I want this to be open to muggles too. We need to get over this anti-muggle prejudice. We have a lot to offer them, and they hve a lot to offer us."

Harry's visitors were shocked by this statement.

Professor McGonagall asked sharply "What about the International Statute for Magical Secrecy? This was put in place as much for their protection as ours. I know you slept through most of Professor Binns' History of Magic classes, but many times in the past, magical people have not been treated very well by non-magical communities"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, that might be a problem. Also, I can see someone in the upper mucky-mucks getting upset by having to 'hang around' with undesirables. But that's kind of my point – we need to get over these prejudices, from both sides."

"I've put a bit of thought into that. There are a couple muggle amusement parks in America that call themselves 'The Magic Kingdom'. Muggles are used to seeing so-called 'special effects' in their moving picture and stage shows. Muggle 'magicians' rely on special effects to distract their audiences from what they are really doing. I think with a little bit of diversion, some disillusion charms, and okay, outright lying, we should be able to convince most of them that it is just trickery. Those who see through it all, we can check for magical abilities, and perhaps get to welcome them as long-lost cousins."

"Now, until very recently, I have not had much experience with holidays and having fun – having what's effectively an unspecified death sentence hanging over your head tends to get in the way of enjoying life. I am going to need to ask for your help and experience in telling me what kinds of things you have seen, or would like to see in a holiday camp that you would want to attend."

Minerva sighed and said, "You know, one of the few things I regret about being a teacher is the lack of opportunity to take winter holidays. Over the Christmas break, we are generally so busy preparing for the next term that we just can't get away. By summer, the best places are overrun with people – a secluded island sounds very nice."

Horace nodded. "I love my work, but there are trade-offs. A nice winter holiday would be pleasant. Harry, what do you think about having some courses lasting a couple weeks or more, say in aquaculture or botany? I am sure we could get a number of students interested in fish-farming, and of course they would need 'staff supervision'."

Minerva was thinking that it had been too many years since she had gotten her bikinis out of her dresser drawers. She laughed in response to Horace's suggestion. "Maybe you could offer, shall I say, a staff discount for old teachers. Yes?"

Harry smiled. "I have, perhaps, a better idea. How would you two like becoming, in additional to your other professional responsibilities, technical advisors to me on both projects. For the schools, you could hire staff to do most of the work, and just oversee the process, hopefully not added too badly to your already heavy workloads. I have a lot of elves who are clamouring for something meaningful to do – they claim I don't make enough work for them all, and they are getting upset not doing stuff. I am told 'It's not the Elf Way!'"

"Also, you would be asked to check out the facilities at the various camps, such as the pools, the dining rooms, the spas, the tropical beaches, and whatever else you see the 'need' to examine. I would want you to treat the facilities in ways the normal tourist would do, in order to truly evaluate the service and attractions. This of course would require lying in the sun, eating and drinking, and whatever other activities you deem appropriate."

Both teachers chuckled at the description of their new 'jobs', and both agreed to the tasks.


	4. Advice from Unexpected Quarters

**Advice from Unexpected Quarters**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

Once Hermione and Harry arrived in Australia, it took about a week to locate her parents, a couple of days to get close enough to them to reverse the memory charms, and about a week for the yelling and screaming to come down to a level that they could talk about things calmly, between crying jags, group hugs, and temper tantrums.

It had taken a week to locate Monica and Wendell Wilkins, as they had joined the Royal Flying Doctor Service providing medical services in the 'outback'. The Service was extremely happy to have the pair of top-notch British dentists, who had decided to emigrate to 'Oz'. Their professional credentials (expert forgeries, thanks to the goblins at Gringott's, for a fee of course) were quickly and gratefully accepted after a brief examination, as experienced staff were always welcome and needed, as the outback had many small settlements that could not afford full-time medical services. Wendell and Monica found that they were doing as much good, in a month, as they had been able to do in England in a year (as far as they could remember their life in the UK, recollections of which were strangely fuzzy). The two pairs finally met up in Alice Springs in the centre of the island continent. Harry and Hermione said that they had come from England, and that some people had asked them to look up the Wilkins while they were 'down-under' (not mentioning that the 'some people' were themselves).

The older couple thought that the young tourists seemed very familiar to them, in ways they just couldn't lay a finger on. The two young people were obviously very close, but apparently not a couple, as they had separate rooms at their hotel. They might have been brother and (married) sister, as they had different last names, but their physical appearances were different enough that it did not seem likely that they were related (possibly adopted or in-laws), and Hermione was not wearing a ring. The young man seemed rather paranoid, always looking around as if to see if someone was following him – they thought he must have been robbed or attacked in their travels, but he held himself as if he could handle anything that came along. When they went out to eat, it was also very strange that the young man would look horrified at the prices on the menus, but always insisted on paying, regardless of the cost of the meal – it was almost like he was raised poor, but had come into a fortune later in life and felt guilty about it. Another odd thing about the young people was that they were never to be seen walking back to their hotel. Once they left a room, they just seemed to vanish.

One evening, Harry and Hermione had invited Monica and Wendell to dinner at their hotel. Hermione was fiddling with a strange stick as if she was going to wave it around. Wendell asked about the stick, as he said he had never seen anything like it. Hermione smiled and said that since they had come to Australia, she and Harry had visited with a number of aboriginal tribes (years earlier, she had learned from Fred Weasley that one of the three classic ways to lie was to tell the truth, but not _all_ of the truth). Monica mentioned that she and Wendell had been to many aboriginal tribal camps to do dental work, but had never seen a stick like the one the young woman now waved in what looked like a purposeful manner. Hermione mumbled something that sounded like Latin, and the mental floodgates opened.

Once Wendell and Monica Wilkins returned to being Gil and Elly Granger, they had a mix of emotions. One was the shock of remembering that they had a beautiful brilliant daughter who happened to be a powerful witch. Another was rage over what she had done to them (even though it had been with their full knowledge and consent), mixed with sorrow and admiration that she had felt she had to do this to protect them from the horrors that she (and the young man accompanying her) had to face. And relief that she and her man (or apparently, men, as another close companion was mentioned a few times, although there seemed to be some growing sadness over that topic) had survived and had come to bring them back to life, as it were.

Once Gil and Elly had come to terms (at least to an initial stage) over what their daughter had done to them, they started to wonder what to do next. They asked their boss for a couple months off, as they wanted to go back to the UK to see their estranged daughter (whom they had never mentioned before) for Christmas. They promised to return by February, when the need for medical help was highest in the heat of the summer. Their manager agreed to their leave of absence, but felt that there was something suspicious going on, and it might just have something to do with the young couple who had come to visit.

The couple told their boss that he was correct, and the young woman was actually their daughter, Hermione. They promised to explain when they returned, and confided that they had been part of a protection program, but the murderous gang had been caught and punished, so they were now free to resume their lives. They promised to return with their actual credentials and a full explanation (although they planned to leave out such details as their daughter's unusual skill set).

Before leaving Australia, Gil and Elly showed Hermione and Harry some of the sights, like Uluru and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They returned to England, stopping at Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal, Petra in Jordan, stop in Egypt to see the pyramids, the Minoan Palace at Knossos, and the Acropolis in Athens. In many of these locations, Harry could feel the old magic which had been used to build the monuments, which was why they had not been completely destroyed by time.

One evening, while they were on Crete, while the ladies were off doing some shopping for souvenirs, Gil and Harry sat in a beachside taverna watching the waves. By this time, Hermione had filled her parents in on all the happenings since they went away, and details about events at Hogwarts which she had neglected to tell them before (suspecting rightly that if they had known the full extent of the horrors she and her friends were subjected to, her parents would pulled her out of the school). Although horrified by the injustices and events that had occurred, they were extremely impressed with the abilities of the young woman they had raised, and very impressed by her companion. They were saddened when Hermione confessed that things had not gone well with Ron for some time and that they had finally broken up, and that things were not going smoothly for Harry and his girlfriend either. Gil was privately pleased that Hermione had finally come to her senses and split from Ron, whom he had always felt was not right or good enough for his daughter (even telling himself that it was a father's job to feel that way about any boy looking at his little girl as if she was a woman).

They had spent the day on the beach, and the women (to Harry's surprise) had dressed in the standard southern European style of swimwear, that being a bikini bottom and no top. Being a style that was also common on Australian beaches, and having taken winter vacations to the Greek Islands and the Costa del Sol, Gil was not surprised by the appearance of his wife and daughter, but Harry was stunned. He stared at Hermione (and Elly), then back at Hermione, while Gil quietly chuckled to himself at Harry's reactions to the sight of his daughter's body– the kid had grown up awfully innocent, given the death and destruction he had faced and indeed had dealt out first-hand himself, and the fact that Harry and Hermione had lived together for months in a tent, an environment not exactly replete with privacy. It was obvious to Gil that, however intimate Harry and Hermione were intellectually, they were not intimate physically (at least, not yet).

Harry was now learning the thrills and dangers of ouzo, while Gil was sipping a glass of local wine. Gil was reminiscing out loud about the tales his daughter had told him, with Harry confirming or elaborating the events from his own point of view.

Gil said "So, in your first year, one of your professors was possessed by this Voldemort fellow, and he let a troll into the castle, and none of the staff detected it, with all their safety measures, what do you call them, wards." Harry nodded.

Gil said "And in second year, a monster was let loose in the castle, from a secret chamber that none of the staff could find over several centuries, but a student found and opened." Harry nodded again. "And in third year, your godfather broke out of your highest security prison, when Dumbledore and others had known he was innocent for at least 10 years and had left him these for political reasons." Harry nodded, looking sadder and sadder as the questioning went on and the flaws in the magical society became more and more obvious.

Gil said, "And in fourth year, a transformed follower of this Voldemort character was impersonating a teacher and teaching for the better part of a year, and put your name in this chalice-thing, with no-one's knowledge." Harry nodded again.

"And in fifth year, you had this woman torturing students, and nobody was doing anything about it." Harry nodded again. Gil continued "And all the while, about one-quarter of the student population were being led by bigoted bullies, who at the very least threatened other students, and most likely were guilty of molestation and rape."

Gil looked sharply at Harry. "And you say that this was the best protected place in Britain, run by the smartest and most powerful wizards and witches in the country. Is this correct?"

Harry had never looked at it from that point of view. He nodded again. He said, "In the last case, the school was under serious political pressure from the Ministry, trying to discredit me. The Ministry was in part afraid of what I knew, and in some cases was being bribed to not look too hard."

Gil shook his head. "Harry, think about it from my point of view. Just how stupid are this inbred, bigotted bunch of idiots? The most powerful wizards and witches in the world can't keep their students safe, can't detect monsters and demons in the castle, can't solve problems that a student cracks, and allows the abuse of its students by bigots and racists! Hermione tells me that you were lied to, and lied about, for most of your life. You were even put on trial for defending yourself against monsters that they refused to acknowledge had gotten out of control! Yet you fight to protect these people! Harry, I have to ask, just how stupid are you?"

Harry gulped, and answered, "It was actually more just protecting my own life and my friends. Voldemort kept coming after me, over and over and over. But when you put it like that, I guess I was a bit distracted from seeing the overall picture."

Gil smiled and laughed, "Good answer, kid. But it wasn't just Voldemort. What about the troll? You could have run out with the rest of the students. But you didn't. You stayed to rescue a little girl that I am rather fond of but that you were definitely not fond of, at least at the time. I know Gryffindors are supposed to be brave, but really. There is an old saying in the military, that a hero is just someone who does something courageous and stupid while there is an officer watching who can recommend him for a medal. I haven't really decided whether you were just courageous, or really really stupid – even your Professor McGonagall called it 'pure dumb luck'! Either way, I am very thankful you did what you did. You saved Hermione over and over. You made it so we can come back and meet our daughter again."

Harry said "With her knowledge and reading up on stuff, Hermione saved my life over and over too. I'd say that, from my point of view, we're about even on that."

Gil said "Harry, I am not required to be grateful for what she did for you. But I, we, are very grateful for what you have done for her."

Gil paused and thought for a moment. He said, "Harry, I am going to recommend you read a couple of books. I know this would horrify Ron – I have to admit I never thought much of that boy, brave though he may be. I didn't think he was right for our Hermione. But then it's a father's job to not think anyone is good enough for his daughter, but the fastest and most disastrous way to drive two young people together is to try and separate them, so I kept quiet, mostly."

"Anyway, one of the books is called 'Black Like Me' by an American named John Howard Griffin. It's about racial bigotry. When you read it, any time you see the words 'black' or 'nigger', insert the word 'muggle'. See whether it sounds familiar to you."

"The other book, or shall I say books, are by an American science-fiction author called Larry Niven, about a version of the future in space, calling it 'Known Space'. A number of the stories talk about artefacts of a long-ago war between a race of powerful telepathic creatures, referred to as the 'Masters', and their controlled servants. One story told how the Masters were incredibly stupid, so a lot of their servants died because the Master in the story forgot to let them eat, sleep or whatever. Eventually, one of their servant races with a strange name managed to organize a secret revolt which wiped out both races."

"Harry, I know that you learned how to cook (Hermione raves about your apple cobbler and your omelettes), and that you found where the kitchens were at Hogwarts, and that you have made friends with the house elves, which you treat like humans and even friends. Harry, most of the people in your world, even the ones you like, treat the elves like slaves at best, and consider most non-human magical folks as vermin. I know you own elves, and that you treat your elves well, but you are an exception in this. Harry, I still have a lot of trouble with the fact that you have elves as bound servants, whatever you call them. And yes, Hermione has told me her story; sad, and terrible – that is going to be a burden she will carry the rest of her life."

"Consider, Harry, your society still holds slaves – in my eyes, elves are owned, or bonded to the families, or to individuals, and that makes them slaves. I know Hermione has said that the elves claim it is their own choosing, but it still looks like slavery to me. (By the way, another book for you to read; 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Harriet Beecher Stowe.) My society gave that up almost two centuries ago, although I am ashamed to say that there are many places in the world where it still happens."

"They say that no country is more than three meals away from a revolution. Harry, how many of your magical humans could even feed themselves if the elves disappeared, or would survive if the elves revolted violently. Hermione tells me that when you freed the elf called Dobby, and Mr Malfoy tried to attack you, Dobby did something that flung him down the hallway. I suspect that if the elves ever got fed up with their treatment, the wizards and witches would not survive long, either by violence, or by starving to death because they can't find the kitchen. Either that, or the fact that there are so few of them that the inbreeding is wiping them out – look at how many of your so-called 'pure-blood' classmates are the only children in their families. And frankly, from everything that I have heard about them, good riddance!"

"Harry, Hermione now tells me that these bigots, in order to keep the power in the 'Great' families, insist that you have two wives, which in my culture is a crime, although other human cultures have other ideas about that. And I gather you were just going to roll over and do it, because you think that that is the world you need to live in. It looks like they want you to personally repopulate the world that they are destroying, or provide them with fresh genetic material as they have contaminated their own."

"Harry, the British aristocracy used to behave like your Great families and your Wizengamot, passing laws to protect their own privileges and keep the power in their own hands. In the 1600's, the people finally revolted and cut the king's head off! Harry, unless you plan to spend your life fighting, or plan to lead a revolt to overthrow the entire system (you know, maybe not a bad idea, that), you are not going to be able to change the way things are run. You can live under that system, like the blacks in the old American South. Or you can get out."

"Not being magical myself, I don't know where might be a better place where you can be yourself. I know that in the aboriginal tribes in Australia, or in the south Pacific islands, or in Africa, they say that magic is part of the culture, but I have never seen what you and Hermione can do." He laughed bitterly, and said "Well, maybe I have, and they altered my memory – that seems to happen to me sometimes."

"Harry, I don't want to push you into something you don't want. But please, think about it. I think there is a strong possibility that I may become your father-in-law, or maybe one of your fathers-in-law, if you take that route. I don't think I would want the latter, but then, that would be Hermione's decision, and maybe even yours, if she lets you have any say in the matter - she is the most stubborn woman I have ever met (and between just us, this is after living with her mother for a quarter century, and Elly can be awfully stubborn). Elly and I have talked it over, and she is having a similar discussion with Hermione. I don't want to see my daughter hurt by your world, and I fear that being muggle-born (as you call it) it is going to happen sometime, and that it might be as bad as the last couple years. She indicates that a new Dark Lord keeps appearing every now and again."

"Another thing, Harry. In my estimation, the two things which are constant features of humanity are bigotry and curiosity. We've talked about the bigotry. But where in your world is the curiosity? The only people I have heard you two talk about, people who are curious about other things and the world outside their experience, are Arthur Weasley and Luna Lovegood, and both are ridiculed and despised by most of your society. Arthur's a nice guy – we have met several times. But even with his curiosity, consider that one of his passions is to figure out how airplanes fly without magic. Muggles figured out the basic principles of aerodynamics over a century ago! He could have picked up any elementary physics text, and had his answer. But they don't teach physics in the magical world, because you have control over the natural forces, or else your elves do it for you. Where's the curiosity? Where are the magical Universities? There aren't any and Hermione has always been hungry to learn – she isn't ever going to be able to satisfy that hunger in the magical world!"

"I suspect that you and she are going to find yourselves living between the magical and mundane worlds, not really accepted by either. You may find others in the same state, but this is one of the reasons why I suspect that you and she will end up together. If so, take care of my little girl."

Harry smiled, remembering the afternoon on the beach and the way Hermione looked in her bathing suit, and responded "Mr Granger, I don't know if you have noticed, but Hermione is not a little girl anymore."

Gil shook his head. "Harry, you will know once you have kids of your own, no matter how grown up they get, your daughters will always be the little girls that you held on your lap reading stories to them at bedtime. Only in your case, the fairy stories will be non-fiction."

Ron Weasley was called into the manager's office at the Cannons headquarters in Chudley. The manager looked a bit embarrassed, and said "Ron, please sit down."

Ron sensed that this could not be good. In terms of his childhood dream, he was right, but in the long term he was not.

The 'boss' said, "Ron, I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go. You're just not fitting in with the team's plans."

Ron shook his head in disbelief. "Bob, I can work harder. I can put together some new plays, and come up with some new formations. I can do this."

Bob shook his head sadly. "Ron, I know you are an excellent player. You are a great keeper, but the owners feel that they want a different man for the job. I am sorry. Anyway, here's your pay packet." Ron stood and said "I don't need it. Keep it for the next guy" as he left the room, crushed.

That evening, Ron was sitting in his apartment crying. Why had Harry done this to him?

His fireplace/floo connection flared green, and a heavily accented voice said "Ron Veasley? Is Viktor Krum. Can I come through?" Ron said "Sure, why not? Can you bring some more whiskey or vodka or whatever? I seem to have run out."

The green flames flared, and the Bulgarian quidditch star walked confidently into the room. He said "I brought some Slivovitz. Made by my father. Good stuff." He looked around the room at the several empty bottles, and said "Maybe later."

Ron looked up from his chair "Have you come to gloat? Did Harry tell you to come laugh at me? Or you coming to tell me Hermione is with you now that she dumped me?"

Viktor scowled, "Ronald, I vill be _friend_, and vill assume is only drink speaking, not my friend Ron Veasley. Why are you blame Harry? He sold his share in Chudley Cannons several months ago. I thought you knew. He wanted your success to be yours, and yours alone; no suspicion that he was 'fixing' for you. Ron, if is necessary, Harry would die for you – you know that. Ron, I am sorry you not know that Harry not own Cannons no more!"

Ron's jaw fell. He had been blaming his best friend for his troubles. His tears increased.

Viktor nodded sadly. "Ron, you have two problem! Most important, you have no confidence in your own good-being. Tell me what you think of this man. When twelve years, he join friend to save life of little girl that he not know well, and what he know, he is not like. Over years he fight with friends, but always be there for them. When he eighteen, he arrive to find friends being possessed by evil talisman and he destroy, saving friends from life worse than death. At same time, he is great quidditch player – first time, he knows he will lose game, but thinks best friend give him lucky potion. But friend not give lucky juice, and the man win game! Makes good plans, good strategies."

"After get out of school, drafted to English Primary League, right out of school. Unheard before. Team known for losing games. Him in goal, team begin winning!"

"What you think of that man? Good, yes? Yes! Ron, that man is you!"

"Ron, I know, Hermione tells me, you feel your family only have you because they want girl, and you born instead. Ginny come next, and then they stop because 'job done'. When growing up, you told 'Protect little sister' – you feel mother thinks Ginny more important than you."

"Is crap! Ron, your mother love you for yourself. Yes, she love Ginny, and she ask you to protect her – the world has very many nasty bads, and pretty girl from poor family is always in danger. Always! Needs strong, good, older brother to protect her until she strong enough on her own, and sometimes even then.

"Second problem is, you got temper hooked up with gonads, and gonads are drunk at the moment! Much jealousy. Hermione is friend only. We write, she tell me about England, Scotland, Hogwarts, I tell her Bulgaria, Durmstrang. Differences, similarities. Interesting stuff."

"Ron, Hermione is, to you, brother-in-arms! Yes, yes, brother with tits and uterus, but brother. Sometimes is good to hold brother-in-arms in arms; when wounded, hurt, needs comfort. Sometimes not so good. Ron, you two not good for each other. You fight together against evil ones, but then you fight together against each other. You like sport, great quidditch player. She like books, learning, hates flying – she come to quidditch games to be Gryffindor, to be friend. Sometimes to prevent nasty curses from other team. Not for The Game, like you and me. I love quidditch, too. Hermione not good for me either. Besides, my Sophia probably not like. She say, 'Viktor, you good player. Big star! Have groupies. But Viktor, no extra on side, you understand! Or I cut things off you would rather keep!'"

Ron said "But you kissed her at Bill's wedding!"

Viktor shook his head, laughing, "Ron, you _so_ English! You never travel. In Europe, is how friends greet each other, nothing more. On cheeks, not lips."

"Ron, I must tell you something you may not have notice. Chudleys are professional team. You still trying to play _school_ game. Professional teams about making money, first, last, always. Not win game, not win house cup. Make money!"

"Ron, Chudleys lose games, or win by small margin only. Their fans love, what is English word, underdogs. You join team, they start winning, big! Fans stop coming, gamblers start losing money on bets, bookies unhappy. Team owners start losing money. Ron, you too damn good for Chudley Cannons!"

"Ron, I hear you not with Cannons no more. I glad you not Cannons no more. So. I come to make offer. I am assistant coach for Bucharest Bozhe Mois. I need playmaker, I need good keeper. Ron Veasley, _I am need you_! You! Good salary, bonuses for winning, European league, lots of travel."

"And Ron, Bulgarian tomatoes!"

Ron looked disgusted "You're trying to bribe me with girls?"

Viktor looked puzzled "Girls? I don't, ...ah I see, in English 'tomato' is pretty girl. No, no, no. In Bulgaria, is grow best tomatoes. At Hogwarts, I try tomatoes at meals. Feh! Not worth eat! At home, two tomatoes and glass of wine, is great lunch all by self. Flavour you not believe, from having tomatoes here. Ron, I have seen you eat, you like food. Or else, you eat lots because you looking for taste you are not finding. Come, join team, eat _good_ food. Maybe even, meet my sister Magda, no?"

Ron sat silently for a couple minutes. Then he nodded and smiled. "Thank you Viktor, I accept. When do I start?"

Viktor looked around the room at the empty bottles. "I think you need to sober up first. Not good apparating with this much drunk. Very messy at other end of trip." The two men laughed. Ron said "Shall we break open that 'Slipperybits' (or whatever it is) and toast my new job!"

In early March, Harry was sitting reading in his living room at the manor.

He had become really engrossed in the science-fiction books that Gil Granger had recommended, and found that Hermione also read science-fiction, along with everything else ever published. They got together and talked about all sorts of topics, such as whether apparating qualified as faster-than-light (FTL) transportation, and how one would go about testing it (as the only way to really see how fast you could go would be to have a very distant destination, such as the moon or Mars, and then see how long it took you to get there and then back. One immediate problem is that they didn't have the apparition coordinates of any of these places. A second was that, as Earth was the only place you could survive without a space suit, how would you survive, with the leading option of learning to do a bubble-head charm covering your entire body.

Harry was thinking about some things that Gil Granger had said, and he was wondering about elf magic. Could an elf go to Mars and back safely? How far could they go? What else could they do that he couldn't even imagine. He knew that he needed to ask, as they had found that assuming things could be disastrous.

Another thing that Harry noticed was that in muggle writings (and in real life), people did things in teams or in groups. Other than in quidditch, Harry had never seen wizards and witches working as a team, and even there, everyone on the team was doing something on their own. There was no magical equivalent of tug-o-war, or a sea shanty where everyone was doing the same thing together to increase the power or effectiveness – this seemed to be manifest in the fact that, other than the school song, no one at Hogwarts sang together. If one wizard or witch was incapable of the task, it just didn't happen. They never combined their strengths! Harry thought this rather odd, and started to wonder if it was even possible, or did the nature of magic prevent it.

His fireplace flared green, and Harry heard Arthur Weasley's voice asking if he could come through, with Molly and Kingsley Shacklebolt. Harry agreed. He hadn't seen Mr Weasley since he and Ginny broke up, and he missed the Weasley family, who had taken him in as one of their own years before. Breaking up doesn't just separate you from your lover, but also their family (who, by that point, you may prefer).

Shacklebolt's presence indicated that this was not going to be purely a 'family' visit.

He offered them all drinks. Molly and Kingsley accepted tea, but Arthur was fascinated by the muggle drink 'cider' that Ginny had told him about, and that Harry's staff produced from the apples on the estate. Harry joined him in this, as much to make him comfortable with the choice as really wanting anything alcoholic during what promised to be serious discussion.

Harry had been helping out on the farm's orchard, as the apple and plum trees were coming into blossom, and the constant hum of bees was as pleasant music as any other he knew. In addition to the cider which had been a traditional product of the farm, Harry had taken up mead making, given the plentiful honey production from the bees, and partially in honour of the late Professor Dumbledore's well-known fondness for oak-aged mead.

Kingsley started the conversation. He seemed hesitant at first, and then said, "Harry, I am sure you know that there were, and are, a number of wizards and witches who, although not Death Eaters themselves, were in sympathy with Voldemort and his crew, and some were outright supporters. Supplying materials, funding, those sorts of things. Maybe they were out for their own gain, maybe they were blood-purists, maybe both. We know that Delores Umbridge was not a Death Eater herself, as she was just in it for her own personal power, but she had the potential to try to be the next Dark Lord (or Lady, I guess). Anyway, you and the Ministry stopped that when you were able to show that she was providing support to Death Eater families both at Hogwarts with her Inquisitors Squad, and at the Ministry – _she_ was trying to use _them_, and it came back to bite her."

"Now that Voldemort is no more, those of us in the Order of the Phoenix have decided that we need to continue the fight against the programs that he was pushing. Otherwise, all the sacrifices will have been in vain." Molly looked pained at this statement, and had tears creeping into the corners of her eyes remembering one of the sacrifices that the Weasley family had endured.

Kingsley continued "Even if at the end of the day, he was using the pure-blood bigots for his own purposes, they are doing things that he would have loved. Things like trying to pass laws so that unmarried wizards and witches would be forced to marry, and use this to both 'restock' the bloodlines of the pure-blood families that were almost wiped out in the war, and incidentally make sure that the laws were set up to make sure that the power was kept in pure-blood hands. One they did manage to get through does require the Heads of Ancient Houses to have an official wife, and if as in your case, a wizard heads two houses, you are required to have a separate official wife for each house – apparently, this is intended to either sow dissension, or keep the wizard otherwise occupied and distracted while they play their manipulative games."

"One of the laws that they were trying to push through the Wizengamot would strip you and Ms. Granger of your Orders of Merlin, because (they claim) as muggle-born or muggle-raised, you are not worthy of this great honour. As such, you would be stripped of your inheritances as well, because they fear your financial and potential political power. Fortunately, the proponents of this law tried to 'influence' some staff, who were not as welcoming as they had hoped, and not as receptive as they might have been in the past; several high-born wizards are now serving long terms in Azkaban for attempted bribery."

"We are worried that there are going to be more attempts to subvert what we did, what you did, in getting rid of Voldemort, and turn the clock back.

Molly Weasley began, "Harry, I know that you and Ginny..., well, it didn't work out between you two. I have to say that I am sorry, and I wish it had gone differently, but you are two different people and it was not to be. Harry, even if you are not going to be my son-in-law, we feel you are part of our family, and we miss you. Arthur and I hope you and Ginny can still be friends, and yes, I know it's a standard kiss-off line when a couple splits up, but she's still the little girl you played quidditch with, and helped run the DA when you and Hermione were gone that winter. She was a good friend, and we hope she still will be. "

"Now, having got that off my chest, " Molly looked down at her ample bosom, and snickered, adding "Well, still lots there. Anyway, we are worried about some of the people hanging around Ginny. And I don't just mean Arthur and myself, I mean the Order! We're known as blood-traitors in a number of circles, and some of the people around Ginny are from purist circles."

"Now, I know Ginny is loving all the attention she is getting. I fear that we spoiled her a bit when she was young, my fault really, and that she has a deep need for the attention and all the acclaim. I worry that she is not going to be as careful as I would like. Maybe the young men around her from purist families learned something in the war, and aren't tempted to follow their families' patterns, but we worry that the purists will try to take their revenge on us through her."

Arthur spoke next. He held up is glass and said "Ginny was right, this is good stuff. But that's another matter. Harry, the Order would like to work with you again. We are not asking you to go to war and fight again. God knows you've done far more than your share, and we don't want to put any more burdens onto you."

"We suspect that they are going to come after you and Hermione, too. If you choose to do so, you two would be the biggest threat to their plans. We would like to share any information we discover with you, and ask that, if you come across any information that the Ministry or the Order should hear, you pass it on."

"Harry, we expect that there will be those trying to influence you, or use your fame and your fortune to their own ends. We would like to suggest that you set up some holding companies to manage your affairs, and maybe keep an eye out for suspicious activities. I gather that you are making some efforts along those lines already. You know people who have connections, as the muggles say 'you know a guy who knows a guy'. For example, we know that some of your classmates were in pure-blood families who wanted nothing to do with Voldemort and his people, and were against their ideas but couldn't really speak up due to the Death Eater children at Hogwarts. Mostly Slytherin, but not all."

Harry remembered how Marietta Edgecombe in Ravenclaw had betrayed the DA at the request of her mother who was a corrupted Ministry official.

Kingsley spoke again. "Harry, you also have connections inside the Quidditch world. Ron and Ginny do too. I know you have walked away from your own personal involvement, but you have ownership interests and a lot of friends in that area, that we just don't have access to. Can we ask you to just keep your ears and eyes open?"

Harry thought about what his guests were saying. It sounded like Gil Granger's fears were coming true. He had already been thinking about what to do, if only to keep people off his own back. The help of the Order, and the Ministry, looked like a very good thing to have. However, it did seem like the future was going to be a bit darker than he had hoped.

Molly started to speak, but Harry could hear a bit of a sob in her voice as she choked slightly, and then said "Harry, I know that it's not really something I can ask, given how things are between you two, but can you please keep an eye on Ginny? I am really worried about some of the people around her. You must know I wasn't thrilled with her doing that calendar, and I am really unhappy about the photospread she did. I love my daughter, and I don't want her to be a joke to everyone we know. I know she is a strong capable young woman, and that with her brothers being the way they are, or at least the way they were, she learned to look after herself in most ways."

"But I don't think that she really thinks about the evil that some of these people are capable of. I think they are trying to use her, either because she is a beautiful girl herself, or there may just be gamblers wanting to influence her playing, or even trying to hurt us through her. Artie and I have been in the Order, fighting these people for longer than you have been alive. We have seen what they can do, and they scare me. I don't want to see my little girl hurt."

Harry assured the three that he would do what he could. He explained that he had already engaged a former classmate as a social advisor to deal with matters involving wizarding society, as his upbringing had been sorely lacking in such information. When he told them the identity of the person, they were shocked given her history of affiliation with children of prominent Death Eaters. Harry assured them that the witch in question had addressed his concerns in that direction to his satisfaction, and that her affiliations had been purely on a social nature due to family ambition. He let them know that, on her own suggestion, he had questioned her under the influence of Verasitaserum, and that he had accepted her Unbreakable Oath of personal loyalty. This further shocked the trio, as Verasitaserum was a controlled substance, but they were also impressed that Harry had taken such extreme precautions (given the woman's history).

Harry gave the three a tour around the property while they chatted. By the end of the afternoon, the old alliance had been renewed.

After the three left, Harry summoned Bruce the elf, and called Pansy Parkinson (head of what Harry thought of as his Wizarding MI-5) and they talked long into the night.

A couple days later, Harry arranged a meeting with the Arthur and Molly Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Hermione, Pansy, Gwenogg Jones (captain of the Holyhead Harpies), and the elves Florrie and Misty. Misty was the Weasleys' elf who was 'attending' Ginny. Harry explained to the group that he would like to have Florrie keep watch on the Harpies, as a security precaution. As Florrie had worked with Ginny before, she was attuned to Ginny's presence and needs, and so would be able to fit in more easily. He rapidly assured Misty that this was in no way saying that Ginny or the Weasleys or him or anyone else was dissatisfied with her exemplary work, and he hoped that she would not take it as a harsh criticism. She was a good and honourable elf and they appreciated her for it. However, Harry was concerned about some bad wizards who might try to harm Ginny and her teammates, and he asked Gwenogg if this would be alright with her and the organization.

As the captain of an all-female team in a rough sport, Gwenogg (call me 'Gwen') was somewhat taken aback by this request. She felt that she and her people could look after their own security (thank you VERY MUCH!) as they had been fending off over-amorous boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, assorted perverts, etc. for many years, very successfully. With their annual 'Naked Quidditch' calendars, dealing with wizards who tried to plant recording devices in their locker room was just par for the course, and she could handle it. She also pointed out that the team also received copious hate-mail, mostly from people who had lost money gambling on games, and most particularly betting _against_ the Harpies since Ginny became their first-string seeker.

Again, Harry asked Gwen not to take it amiss, just as he had for Misty. He pointed out that some of the mail that Ginny was getting was not just the run-of-the-mill marriage proposals, outright propositions, very explicit requests for dates, and such, as these were, as Gwen pointed out, just the normal course of business for a women's sports team in a competitive (and largely testosterone-driven) league.

He showed her some of the letters Ginny and her parents had received from anonymous senders (some of which Ginny had forwarded to her parents, with copies to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement office, with some directly to personal contacts in the Aurors Bureau Special Action Squad – the infamous 'SAS'). Some were very explicit in the details of the abuse or torture that the daughter of blood-traitors could expect, should she fall into their hands. Some detailed plans to go after her family and friends, particularly that disgusting half-blood and his friends, mudbloods and blood-traitors all.

Reading some of the planned 'party activities', Gwen's face blanched. These were definitely beyond the usual crop of horny young wizards trying to score with one of her team-mates. These were something much darker and more dangerous

Harry commented that, as the aforementioned half-blood, he felt that these were an attack on himself personally, and so he felt the need to intervene personally. He pointed out that the sentiments contained in the letters were things which he had been dealing with all his life, and the ideas they displayed were along the lines of what Voldemort (the group gave a collective shudder at the mention of 'the name') was trying to accomplish. As such, he felt the need to step in and do something. Harry's face took on a sad anger, as he said, "A lot of people died fighting those attitudes. I am not going to let their deaths be in vain."

Harry pointed out that he, and his advisors (nodding to Pansy and Hermione) and their teams, were going to discover the perpetrators, and deal with them in an effort to eradicate the bigotry and prejudice from their society. He would appreciate her (and Misty's) help, but it was going to happen one way or another.

Gwen took another look at the parchments in her hands, and shuddered. She looked at Harry and nodded, saying "This is way out of my league, and I would really like to keep it that way. Go ahead. Florrie, if you would like to stay at my flat when you're not looking out for my girls, I would be happy to have you." The elf was obviously please that she had a person to help in her 'spare' time, rather than just hanging around in a women's locker room under a disillusion charm so her presence was not obvious to those who weren't looking hard enough. She announced that since Harry had got so many elves because of his prowess beating up bad wizards, she had very little to do. As an elf, not being busy was just not acceptable to her, and frankly, she was getting bored. She welcomed the chance to 'do' for Gwen.

Harry asked the elf, "Florrie, would you prefer to be bonded to Gwen?"

Florrie shook her little head. "No, Master Harry. My loyalty is to you and your cause, as you and your Hermione have deep concern for the welfare of all elves. But I want something to do! Thank you for giving me the opportunity, even if it is not in your own house, but that of a friend. I helped with your Ginny, when she was your Ginny, and now I will help with your Miss Gwen."

Gwenogg stated to protest that she was not 'his' Miss Gwen, as Harry was protesting the same thing. The two looked at each other, and as Florrie looked at them smugly, laughed as they realized the futility of arguing with an elf. They had been 'had', and they knew it.

Harry looked at Gwen, who nodded her agreement at the arrangement. Over coffee, tactics were discussed, and then Pansy got up, and said, "Harry, I'll be at the office for the next few hours if you need me", and disappeared.

Harry and Gwenogg spent a couple enjoyable hours discussing everything quidditch.

After Gwenogg left, Harry apparated over to Pansy's office. The office was in her residence outside London, to be near the DMLE headquarters if she needed to contact them quickly. She was meeting with her senior elves.

Harry took a few of the more personal letters in his hands, saying "I want these people found."

Bruce (Harry's head elf, who he had working with Pansy's team) said "Mr Harry, sir, we have put "Find-me' charms on the letters. We call the charm 'Mal-where'. Everything you do has your magical signature on it, and we can trace who wrote these, where and when. We have already ascertained that these two (holding up one note about Hermione's mudblood status) came from Hogwarts. We haven't traced which house and which student, but it does not have the signature of any of the staff. Harry, we're on it, and we will let you know. As you asked, we are passing along copies of the more vicious ones to the DMLE, with our assessment of the sources."

Harry nodded his thanks. He said "Sounds like you have it in hand. Good. Just keep me in the loop, particularly if it involved any of our friends or the Weasley family. Also anything else that you think I should know about."

With that, he returned home, thoroughly annoyed with the state of his world.

A/N: MI-5 (originally Military Intelligence Department 5) is the British internal counter-intelligence department (equivalent to the FBI in the USA), as opposed to MI-6 (or SIS) which is the external intelligence service (roughly equivalent to the USA's CIA). Other countries combine both functions within different departments of the same overall organization like the KGB in the former USSR, or CSIS in Canada.


	5. Visitors

**Visitors**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

A/N: Sunday March 19th, 2000 was a full moon.

On the weekend just before the March equinox, Harry held a party at the Manor for his classmates and friends and teammates from school. Ron Weasley was invited, but Ron had a game that Saturday afternoon, but said he and Viktor would try to come after the game (and the inevitable treatments by their trainer and mediwitch). Harry said that if they couldn't make it on the Saturday, some were staying over to the Sunday and they would be welcome then.

Ginny Weasley was also invited, but begged off as it had been only a month since she and Harry broke up, and she still felt a bit uncomfortable. Harry reiterated the invitation, and said she was always welcome, as an old friend and adoptive sister if nothing else, and that if she felt awkward around him there would be lots of others to visit with. He told her that he realized it would be difficult for a while, given what they had been for each other, but if there was anything she needed from him, or needed to discuss with him, he was there for her and always would be. From what Kingsley and Molly had said, he feared it would not be long until he heard from her.

Most of them were very surprised (and in some cases, insulted and infuriated) at Pansy Parkinson's presence, and even more shocked when Harry told them that she was now officially his social advisor for dealings with the wizarding world, and unofficially the head of his intelligence gathering network. He pointed out that there were still many in their world who had a hatred for all things related to muggles in general, and to him in particular, as he had messed up the comfortable way things had been for them (minus a few muggle or 'blood-traitor' deaths here and there). After these explanations, his friends (generally) agreed to give Pansy the benefit of the doubt, at least for the moment.

Over the winter just past (once he had recovered from his own shock), Harry had told Hermione, and Ron and Ginny about his meeting with Pansy the previous autumn. Ron was amazed that he would have anything to do with any Slytherin, and then Harry had let them know about Pansy's methods of negotiation. Hermione and Ginny had started giggling at Harry's astonishment, and then began laughing to the point of paralysis at Ron's reaction to Harry's news.

Now, Harry advised his friends that, as he saw it, he had two choices. He could either liquidate his assets and disappear, leaving the wizarding world to rot on its own, or he could use his resources to make things better. He admitted that he was extremely tempted to go with the former, but there were too many people he cared about still around, so he figured that the second option was his choice. With a smirk, he did mention that he owned some nice tropical property where his friends could hide out (either temporarily or permanently) if they choose, if they felt that they just didn't want to have to keep fighting.

Harry pointed out that, if they were going to fight, they needed information, and Pansy had sources that the rest of the bunch just did not have access to. He also asked his friends not to spread the word about Pansy working for him, as this would make her work more difficult, and would likely endanger her life as well. As they had all been through the danger themselves, they agreed that Harry had a point.

Neville was a bit put out for a short while for being overlooked as social advisor, as he was a fullblood (he refused, wisely, to use the term 'pureblood') and under his grandmother's tutelage knew his way around the wizarding society, and was eager to help Harry however he could. However, Harry pointed out that Neville was well known among the 'nasties' (as Harry dubbed them) as a friend of Harry, and hence a 'blood-traitor'. Consequently, Neville's value as a spy was inherently limited, while Pansy's Slytherin connections might prove useful. Harry also whispered to him that he (Harry) didn't want to risk him (Nev) unnecessarily, as he (Nev) appeared to be on the verge of proposing to Hannah or Susan (or possibly both), and he (Harry again) felt Nev deserved some peace and quiet, at least until children started arriving. Neville smiled quietly, and Harry asked why; Nev just said "Later".

Harry suggested that Nev might have a chat with Pansy, and see if they each could come up with some ideas that the other might not have thought of. The two would have different points of view, and each might pick up on something useful that the other had missed.

In the afternoon after lunch, various groups wandered around the estate, with the composition of the groups changing as the old friends mingled, and looked around. Knowing her interest in magical creatures, Harry walked with Luna around the orchard for a while, as Harry told her of his growing interest in the insects which pollinated the blossoms. He also showed her the grove of oak trees which were infected with mistletoe – she was quite disappointed that these particular trees seemed unpopulated by nargles, who were 'known' to infest mistletoe. She said that she hoped that the small timid creatures would find that, now that Harry had reclaimed his inheritances and settled at the manor, there was a the new peaceful atmosphere that would lure the skittish critters back, and that she looked forward to showing Harry that nargles were delightful little beasts.

Neville Longbottom looked over the gardens and the animals, accompanied by Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones, Seamus Finnegan and some others who had been classmates in Hagrid's Magical Creatures class. The day was reasonably warm, but Susan and Hannah both wore bulky jumpers (for warmth, they claimed). Neville commented on the plants in one area of the gardens, which seemed to be relatively undeveloped except for a row of olive trees surrounded by calla lilies. Outside the hearing of the girls, Harry had told Nev that it was his 'Ladies' garden, to be developed as appropriate – so far, he only had planted flowers and trees in honour of his mother and their Head of House.

Neville was also impressed at the broad band of 'Forget-Me-Now' flowers surrounding the estate. Luna informed him that the flowers had originally been developed by her father as a floral 'notice-me-not' spell. Harry had told Hermione that he had been reading some of the books her father had recommended, and thought of the plants as his 'Somebody Else's Problem Field'.

As Harry went off to show some others his quidditch pitch, Luna located Hermione and asked where they could talk privately, as she had something important to discuss. Hermione was puzzled by this rather forceful approach from the usually spacey blond witch, and suggested the swimming pool, where Harry had provided privacy charms for when he (or his guests) wished to swim unencumbered by cloth.

As the two women entered the pool area, Hermione asked Luna where her swimming suit was. The short blonde replied, "Why bother?", and calmly removed all her clothing, folding her garments and placing them carefully on one of the poolside chairs. As she turned at looked at Hermione standing there blushing at the site of the shorter nude witch, she said "Oh yes, you were away the winter of seventh year and you missed 'Advanced Charms and Transfigurations'.

As the older girl looked at the younger witch with a puzzled look on her face, Luna smiled and said "In that class, we learned all sorts of nature charms, which require you to be 'skyclad." As Hermione asked "Skyclad?", Luna replied "Clad only in the sky, without our robes on, or anything else for that matter." She then laughed at Hermione's discomfort and said "Some girls had problems with it, particularly when we did the sexual forces charms, which required mixed couples, although nobody actually coupled during the class." She sounded quite disappointed at this fact. "I thought Professor Flitwick was very cute standing there in nothing, with his face about the height of my 'curlies'" looking down at her body. I thought Professor McGonagall looked quite elegant and dignified without her robes."

Hermione was stunned at this revelation. "No! McGonagall? She wouldn't! Would she?"

Luna laughed as she smiled and took on a more distant (than usual) facial expression as she reminisced. She said "Oh yes. Minerva has quite a sense of humour. The first classes we just peeled down to our underwear, in order to start getting more comfortable with being undressed around other people. The Slytherin girls had some very pretty old-fashioned undies (you know the Slytherin fashions were like the ones you showed us in that book from the reign of Queen Victoria), while Parvati and Lavender wore some really risqué knickers that they saw in the fashion magazines your mum sent. McGonagall had an old-fashioned camisole and French knickers, about mid-thigh length, in her family tartan. The second class, Astoria Greengrass had gone up to the room the fashion and sewing club uses, and made herself some new things – her older sister Daphne (from your year) has taken up a modelling career, and Tori had some rather, shall I say, 'modern' ideas for underclothes. McGonagall showed up in a tiny bra and G-string pants, still in the family tartan, although it was quite difficult to see the pattern – she looked so funny in the skimpy things, still wearing her witch's hat. The next class was the first completely nude session, and Minerva took off her hat and let down her long dark hair which fell to below her waist – she stood there very dignified and statuesque; she was quite magnificent."

Luna smiled at the older girl, and said "You know, this weekend there is a full moon, and Harry had such beautiful groves of trees. I am going to suggest all the girls, and whichever boys want to join us, come out and dance in the moonlight. No clothes of course." Hermione said "I gather you have done this before." Luna smiled he wide-eyed blissful way, and said "Oh yes, my mother and granny and I went out every full moon and danced in the groves of trees. Sometimes the tree nymphs would come out of their trees and join us, but if you wear clothes, they won't come. My mother's family descended from the Norwegian tree nymphs, you know." Hermione was (for the umpteenth time) not entirely sure if Luna was putting her one, or believed the unbelievable, or might be telling the truth. Luna waved her wand and her waist-length hair arranged itself into a braid, which wrapped itself into a bun to stay out of the water; she then stuck her wand into her hair as a hairpin.

With that uncertainty whizzing around in her head, Hermione decided to go with the dress code of the moment, and stripped down herself. She was uncertain why, this time, she felt uncomfortable undressing in front of Luna. They had been friends for years, and they had showered together after DA practices. Was it because there was just the two of them, or because they were now older, or that they were no longer fighting for their lives but moving on with living them? Was Luna making advances? Hermione was not sure, but thought to herself "It's just Luna. She's a good friend, and it's just us girls in the pool." She still blushed all over as she undressed.

Both girls entered the water, and swam over to the hot tub area to sit and talk.

As they sank back, relaxing into the hot water, Luna looked over at Hermione and asked, "So, are you going to be Mrs Potter or Mrs Black?" Hermione sat bolt upright, and asked "What do you mean?"

Luna looked at Hermione with a dreamy look in her eyes, and said "I want to know which house I can be a concubine in. Therefore, I need to know whether you are marrying Harry as Mrs Potter or Mrs Black."

The brunette shook her head and sputtered "Harry and me, we're not..., he hasn't..., we haven't..."

Luna looked at the older witch with a mildly disgusted face, as if to say "Come on girl, get real!" What she said out loud was "Hermione, my dear friend, it is obvious to everyone around you two that you are together, or soon will be. Unless of course you're gay, which I don't think you are, and I don't think Ron Weasley would disagree with that. If you are gay, then I would like to be together with you; I've never tried it with another woman but some people seem to like it and I am happy to try it if you want to. Hermione, I love you too, on your own, as yourself." She paused, and then added saucily, "You can close your mouth now."

Hermione sputtered some more, and then her brain started working again. She asked "Why ask me? If you want to be with Harry, you should ask him."

Luna shook her head. "I love you both and don't want to hurt either one of you. For one thing, I have seen what you do to people who try to hurt you. It looks quite unpleasant. For another, I think you and Harry would want to be together, one way or another, and I would not want to get in your way."

The younger woman smiled and looked down at her body, and said, "Hermione, I want to be completely open with you on this. I have nothing to hide from you."

Hermione got a twinkle in her eyes, and looked over Luna's body carefully. She smiled and said, "I think you have some very nice things to hide." Luna blinked in astonishment at Hermione's comments, then smiled and thanked her for the compliment.

Hermione looked at her shrewdly and asked "From the way you asked your question, you obviously know that Harry is supposed to have a wife for each of his two houses. But you said you want to be a concubine. I don't understand. If you want to be with him, you could be one of his official wives. Both positions are open at the moment. Wouldn't that be better?"

Luna looked shocked and shook her head violently. "Oh no! Absolutely not! No way ! As an official wife, I would have to go to parties, and meet important people, and drink cocktails with foreign dignitaries, and maybe even sit in the Wizengamot sessions. I would have to smile and be polite to people who dislike me, who despise me for who I am, what I am, and the way I am. The purists call me a blood-traitor, and most of the rest of our world think I'm crazy. They may be right, but so what. I'm me, and I like 'me'."

"I would lose all my freedom to travel the world and study rare animals and meet people that _I_ want to meet. I would lose the freedom to be me! As a concubine, my only requirement would be to have Harry's children. I think making babies with Harry would be fun."

"As the Head of an Ancient House, and being wealthy, Harry needs to have an official wife, but can also have as many concubines as he wants, or his wife will let him have. I want to be one of them. And I think you might let me, where other women might not.

"Hermione, I love you and I love Harry, for all the things you have done for me and with me. You taught me to fight, and you fought for me and beside me. You both saved my life over and over. You helped my Dad with his paper, and protected him when they attacked him. And more important, neither of you _ever_ laughed at me like the others did, or stole any of my things. You both treated me with respect."

"I want to thank you for all these things. I want to thank you for these things in the only way I know that can express how much I deeply appreciate you, and him. I want to share with you all that I have, all that I am. I will share, but I will not _throw or_ _give away_ the essence of what is me."

"I would like to make love with you and with Harry, separately or together, if that's all you want from me, but I would be very pleased if we could make it on a more permanent basis. Hermione, I know in my heart that you and Harry will marry and be happy, and I want to be part of it as well. I don't know if you are going to be Mrs, Potter or Mrs Black, and I don't know who will be the other."

"I think Ginny is out of the picture now. She has been my best friend since primary school, but she has a selfish streak that I have seen hurts Harry; she craves attention which Harry hates, so I don't think she will be in contention. I see Pansy has entered the picture, and I think she is a possibility; she is a Slytherin, and other than Harry's godfather, all the Blacks were Snakes. But I don't know her, and until I do, I don't trust _her_. I don't know whether I could get along with her enough to be a concubine in _her_ house. But I know you. I trust you and I love you."

Hermione shook her head. "It would be Harry's house, not hers."

Luna looked at her bushy-haired friend sadly, as if she had just said something stupid. Quietly, she asked, "And your mother has no influence on what happens in your house?"

Hermione blinked, and hung her head down and nodded. She knew how much her rather forceful mother 'had influence'. After all, Elly was the parent from whom Hermione got her stubbornness and bossiness. She said "Good point. You're right."

Luna smiled and said, "Of course I am right. So, are you going to be Mrs Potter, or Mrs Black?"

Hermione nodded at the explanation, and then smiled. She pulled the blonde into a tight hug, skin to naked skin. She looked into Luna's eyes and said, "We'll have to see; I will probably have to ask Harry. He is so clueless sometimes, I'm not sure he has even thought of it yet. And to be honest, I'm not sure where our relationship is going." Luna again looked at her as if she had just said something stupid. Hermione smiled and said, "Right. So, what time are we going tree-dancing?"

As the girls laughed, the rest of the group began pouring into the pool area. Seamus looked at Hermione and Luna, and smiled widely. "Great, we're skinny-dipping!" as he started to strip. Hermione blushed and covered her breasts with her hands as she sank deeper into the hot tub, looking at Luna accusingly. She whimpered "Didn't you cast the privacy charms?" The blonde looked at Hermione dreamily and said with a saucy grin, "I thought as you are almost the 'lady of the house', it was your job, so no, I didn't."

Luna then called to Seamus and the others, "Hang on a mo'. Everyone has to stand on the diving board as they undress!" Turning to Hermione, she said quietly, "I saw this muggle moving picture once where they had a nude swimming party, and all the people who came late had to do that. It seemed a lot of fun. Especially for the ones already in the pool."

Seamus called out, "You heard Luna, everybody. I'll go first." He hopped up on the diving board, and peeled down, then jumped into the water. Luna looked at Hermione and said "I assume you noticed how he looked at us while he dropped his underwear, and how part of him looked just like a little diving board." Hermione had a lot of trouble covering up her giggles, as her hands were otherwise occupied.

When Harry got up on the board for his 'reveal', Luna and Hermione stood up in the hot tub, and started cheering. Luna started chanting 'Take it off! Take it off!" which the others joined in on, then changing the chant to "Boxers or briefs? Boxers or briefs?" Once this question was visually answered to everyone's satisfaction, the group began applauding. Harry scowled over at Luna and Hermione (who had started this nonsense), and noticed that his best friend's bushy brown hair was not confined to her scalp. His now naked body reacted to this revelation in a predictable fashion, to the delighted whoops and hollers of the group. In his embarrassment and in his attempt to cover up the 'surprise visitor' caught his feet in his discarded underwear, lost his balance and fell off the board into the water, to the hilarity of his friends. Katie Bell yelled out, "You'd think a Seeker would be more coordinated!"

As Hannah mounted the board, Neville asked for everyone's attention. He announced that Hannah and Susan had been best friends since childhood, and shared everything. He announced that last autumn they had informed him in no uncertain terms that he was to be one of those things, and being of an Ancient House and being allowed by wizarding law to have a wife and concubines, he was going to marry them both (with details as to legal or official status and priority to be decided later). He asked all present to be at their (three-way) marriage ceremony on the first of May. At this point both ladies murmured a 'Finite Incantatem' charm, and their engagement rings appeared to the others. As Hannah undressed on the diving board, it became apparent that the threesome had anticipated the ceremony by some months, and this was also confirmed when Susan's turn came and her swelling abdomen became visible. Neville summarized by saying that if Harry's fears and paranoia were really true, he had even more to fight for than he had before, because nobody was going to hurt his ladies if he had anything to say about it, and he definitely would have something to say!

Harry decided not to kill the mood by adding that when they _are_ after you, it's not paranoia.

When Pansy got up on the board, she flicked her wand at the pool's sound system, which started playing some basic striptease music. While the rest watched in surprise, she disrobed in a slow and very theatrical fashion, ending to applause from the assembled wizards and witches. After she finally jumped into the water, Luna swam over to her and said "I think you have done this before, lots."

Pansy looked sharply at the woman that all her housemates in Slytherin would have call a space-cadet (or worse), had they been in tune with muggle derogatory slang.

She said to the blonde "Why do you say that?" Luna looked at her with the dreamy look she got when she was reminiscing (although Pansy did not know her well to recognise the difference), and said "In my fourth year, your fifth, a bunch of us girls got together for a party. Ginny Weasley had got this idea from some magazines her brothers had showing witches taking their clothes off, and we thought it could be a fun way to break the ice and get to know each other better. We all got liquored up, and some of us did a strip show. You know we didn't really have any music or physical activity program at Hogwarts – to say we were clumsy and uncoordinated would have been kind, very kind. For a lot of them, getting publically naked was awkward too, but the liquor helped. When you did your dance just now, your moves were smooth and synchronized beautifully with your music. Your seductive glance over your shoulder when you removed your bra looked rather confident. It was obvious to me that you had a lot of practice." Pansy realized that this witch was far more perceptive than most of her classmates would have given her credit for.

Pansy smiled sadly and said "Well, yes I have. When I first came to Hogwarts, I got sorted into Slytherin, just as my family wanted. A house full of adolescent pure-blood boys, inbred to the point of imbecility, who had been told since birth that they were the be-all-and-end-all of existence. Girls, particularly girls like me who weren't pretty, were treated as their communal sex toys; there were very few virgins in Slytherin. One of the older girls pointed out that the one thing pubescent boys are _not,_ is 'patient'. She taught me some of the striptease moves, telling me that by the time the first boy had had his way with me, the rest would have gone elsewhere, either to other girls, or to look after their own pleasure themselves. Of course, some girls had other ways to protect themselves. For example, Daphne had some really nasty impotence hexes, as well as a very hard and well-placed kick if subtlety and witchcraft didn't work. Because of my family's social and dynastic ambitions, I paired up with Draco Malfoy pretty quickly, so the rest of the boys tended to leave me alone. But then, Draco enjoyed watching me undress, so I got a lot of practice."

Luna commented "It sounds like it was horrible for you." Pansy looked at the blonde as if she had been slapped. For the first time in her life, someone had thought about, and actually seemed to care about, how _she_ felt about her situation. All her life she had known, as the daughter of a lower-ranked noble house, she was a pawn in family and dynastic politics. Luna seemed to think that Pansy's feelings mattered. This was something new.

Pansy continued, "When I got out of school, I worked as a stripper for a while, because after Harry had killed Voldemort, my family lost all their money and society connections. When the only thing you are known for is hanging around with the kids of Death Eaters, nobody will give you a decent job, but with a little glamour charm as disguise, a young woman can always find 'employment'. Fortunately, I never had to go as low as some of my housemates have done, like poor Millie, (I want to help her get out of her situation if I can, and with Harry's help, I think I can), but it can be a very slippery and dangerous slope. A lot of the people you meet are not very nice, and _that_ is being generous. However, it _is_ a very useful way to find things out about what's going on – you would be amazed what you can get a young man to tell you when he is a bit drunk and you're not, and if you're a bit naked. It's a useful skill on any spy's resume. If you are dancing at a club frequented by pure-bloods, you can find out all sorts of useful things."

Luna blinked a couple of times and said "But you cared about your dancing, that _the dancing_ itself mattered. If all you wanted to do was get the boys excited, you could have just torn your robes off, wiggled your tits and shoved your bush in his face. That always seems to work." Luna smirked at Pansy's shock at this statement (or rather at Luna making such a statement), then continued "Yes, I know the words; I just choose not to use them very often. But you have a 'flow' to your dance as if you actually enjoy the motions."

Pansy was rather stunned by this perceptive statement, as she _had_ begun to enjoy the dancing for itself, not just keeping the patrons happy.

Pansy then looked at Luna and asked, "Why are you wasting your time with me, rather than talking with your friends? You came in here with Granger."

Luna looked at Pansy and said "Oh, I just finished propositioning Hermione, and she has to talk to Harry before we can finalize the arrangements." Pansy was a bit stunned by this statement, then Luna continued. "I am here with you because I don't know you. Yet. I know of you, and didn't much care for what I did know, but Harry trusts you now instead of wanting to kill you, which is what I would have expected. Something significant has changed, and I need to know what, and I think I owe it to you to get your perspective. You see, Harry is a very good friend. He was one of the first people who treated me with respect, and I am grateful for that. I intend to keep being part of his life."

"He is treating you with respect and trust, a person who spent years maligning him and threatening his life. Professor Dumbledore always said he trusted Professor Snape, who then killed him. I find that very strange. Now Harry says he trusts you. If you and I are both going to be part of Harry's life, we need to get to know each other. I thought I should start the process, as I didn't think you would come to me."

Luna's expression then changed to a cheery one, as she said, "Some of us are going out later to dance in the moonlight. Would you like to join us?" Again Pansy was surprised that Luna was offering an activity, which was totally up to Pansy to do or not, solely as she pleased.

Pansy agreed, and later that evening some of the group gathered under the apple trees (which were in full blossom). Luna had dressed in a diaphanous gown, which she dropped once they were in the grove. Pansy doffed her clothes, as did the others. Luna began to sing with what sounded like words, but in a language that none of the group had heard before. The blonde danced to her song, and the group joined in as well. Pansy soon noticed that the rest of the group moved very clumsily, as if they had either never danced before or they were very self-conscious about being undressed in the open air; Pansy felt no such self-consciousness, and realized that where she and Luna could be said to be _nude_, as opposed to the others being _naked_, and there was a definite difference. Pansy herself danced smoothly, but Luna flowed freely with the music as if she was part of it; she looked like she was _part_ of the moonlight. Pansy had never seen anyone move so freely. As she danced, Luna went up to everyone, and gave them a brief hug and a kiss, and then danced on. When she came to Pansy, she took the dark-haired witch's hands and led her into a more flowing motion, and the two danced together dressed only in the light of the moon.

Luna and Pansy both had a lot to think about concerning this rather new person in their lives. Their lives had followed different paths, but they seemed to be converging. Pansy looked at the group of friends, and saw that these people were together in friendship and mutual respect, not because of fear or lust for power which had been her life to this point.

The next morning, those who had not returned to their own homes gathered for breakfast. Harry had the usual fare that they had been fed at Hogwarts, but also introduced them to pancakes, waffles, coffee, tea, and various fruit juices (apple from his orchard, as well as orange, tangerine, guava and pineapple), informing them that he had finally been able to convince his elves that juice could be made from things other than the pumpkins which seemed to grow in such abundance at or near the Scottish castle, and he had decided that he was just bloody tired of pumpkin juice! At Luna's look for dismay, he commented that he still very much enjoyed her pumpkin spice wine that she had brewed (surreptitiously) in her dorm.

As the bunch as digging into the 'muggle delicacies' (as Pansy jokingly described them), the fireplace in the dining area flared, and Ron's voice called out (or rather in) "Ron, Viktor and guests. Can we come through?" Harry immediately said "of course", and gestured to the elves to start preparing more pancakes.

Ron, Viktor and two young witches stepped out of the fireplace. The older of the two witches had bushy dark blonde hair, and was rather slim, while the younger had straight black hair falling to the middle of her back, and a stocky physique which indicated an active life. From her features, it was obvious that the younger witch was related to Viktor. The older witch was holding Viktor's hand, and an ornate wedding ring was visible on her left hand. The younger woman wore an engagement band with a large ruby.

Ron looked at the group in the dining area in front of plates of food, and remarked, "I see we timed our arrival well!"

Viktor smiled and said "Harry, Hermione, and friends I haven't met yet, I am please to introduce you my wife, Sophia", indicating the taller witch with the bushy hair, and then gesturing to the stocky younger woman, "and my little sister Magdalena. She is call 'Magda' to friends, so please do."

Harry stepped forward and greeted both ladies with a kiss on each cheek, and bid them welcome to his house. They each smiled and thanked him in halting English for his hospitality.

Harry embraced Ron warmly and shook Viktor's hand. The Bulgarian grabbed Harry by the shoulders and kissed him on each cheek.

Viktor smiled and said "Ron is helping me learning gooder English." (A voice coming from behind Harry muttered something about 'the blind leading the blind'). Viktor continued, smiling, "Magda and Sophia, still not so comfortable English-speaking as me."

Hermione came up to Viktor, kissed him on both cheeks and welcomed him, his wife and sister, in perfect Bulgarian. Viktor smiled, and turned to his wife, and introduced her as his long-term 'pen-pal'. Sophia smiled and said in English (smiling coyly at her husband) "I see now why Ron laugh uncontrollable when he first meet me." Touching Hermione's bushy brown hair and her own. "When Ron finally come up for air, he say that Viktor must have 'thing' about bushy hair!" The two women hugged, and Hermione said "I am so glad to finally meet you in person, Viktor has written so much about you."

Harry looked at Magda's ring and looked to Viktor, saying "You would have been welcome to bring Magda's fiancé", to which Viktor and Ron simultaneously said "we did!", as Ron embraced and kissed Viktor's little sister.

The group muttered, in astonishment, at which point Seamus got up on a chair, and called out "Come on, you lot. Ron's favourite expression! Everyone, all together now. One, two, three!" and as one the group exclaimed "Bloody Hell!", and gathered around the couple, congratulating them and expressing their best wishes.

Over the afternoon, the group talked over a range of topics.

The first topic, of course, was marriage. Ron told of how he and Magda got together.

Harry listened to the discussions, and then asked Neville a question which had been one his mind for some time. "Nev, how does it work, marrying two witches at once? I thought that the head of an Ancient and Noble House, like you and me, could have only one 'Lady of the House', but you could have additional wives of concubines. How are you going to work it with both Sue and Hannah being essentially of equal status?"

Viktor looked at Harry and Neville. "You are marry two witch, at same time? Interesting."

Sophia looked at her husband with a withering glare. "Viktor, Wizengamot may say okay for marry much witches, but I not! You my husband, my only. No two or three witch. "

Viktor looked to his wife, and smiled "Sophia, my love, I only for academic knowing, as scholar."

Sophia smiled sweetly and lovingly, and shook her head. "Vikkie, you know, me know, you good man, you good quidditch play. You _no_ scholar!" Viktor laughed and went over to his wife and kissed her. "Of course, my love, you correct, as always."

Ron led the group in a collective sigh of "Ahhh...", and friendly laughter.

Then Sophia smiled shyly and looked lovingly at her husband, and said "And you be good papa, too."

Viktor's eyes widened. "Papa?"

Sophia grinned and said "I want tell alone. But here, friends yes? Family, yes? So." Looking at the group, she apologised "I sorry, not good England word; Italiano, si, Russky, da, England no." They smiled and indicated she should go ahead. She looked at Viktor again, "You know I not good feel sometime. Morning lose food. Not do woman time two time. I go healer. She tease, say 'Oh Sophia, problem you. Have grow thing in belly. Make much big, like eat quaffle. But only for time. Then go away, but give problem rest of life!' No, be two problem."

Sophia looked around the room. "Not England words. You know Zauberflöte? Mozart?" Hermione nodded and said that she knew the opera. Sophia said "Kleine Papageno, kleine Papagena, yes?"

Hermione gave a little shriek of joy. "Sophia! A boy and a girl? Twins?"

Sophia looked lovingly at her rather shocked husband. "Twins. Is good word. Yes twins."

Again, Ron led the group in a collective sigh of "Ahhh...", but this time with calls of congratulations.

Neville grinned, and returned to Harry's original question. "Harry and all of you, as you know, neither you or I have any choice in the matter. In your case, you are the head of two separate houses, and the law requires a separate 'Lady' for each house. In my case, well, shall we just say I was not given a choice in the matter", as he looked lovingly towards Hannah and Susan.

"When I told Gran what Sue and Hannah had decided, on my behalf, she laughed at me, and said I was the only wizard she knew that would see it as a problem. You know, since I grew up, and since the battle at Hogwarts, she doesn't treat me as a pathetic little boy any more. Sometimes as a pathetic big boy, but it's better. She told me recently that since the battle, she has seen me as a man to be proud of. That means more to me than my Order of Merlin!"

"Gran said that the fact that I was worried about Sue and Hannah, and their positions and feeling more than myself, spoke very highly of me. I loved the way she put it. She said that babies don't seem to care much for parchmentwork, and many a child has been conceived on one side of the marriage license and delivered on the other.

"Anyway, she tells me that times have become somewhat looser than they were. I gather that the decision on the official 'Lady', is usually decided by who got pregnant first. A hundred years ago, they didn't have the diagnostic spells that they have today, and it would be whoever gave birth first."

Pansy added, "Actually, it was a bit more specific than that. It was all to do with keeping succession and inheritances clear and orderly. If you were from a high-born family, until about ninety years ago, you couldn't even marry the second wife until the first had given birth." She conjured up a document. "The old law states 'If a wizard marries a witch, he may not marry a second until the first union prove fruitful. (Nowadays of course, we can detect the 'fruitful-ness' much earlier than at birth, but those are the words, and I guess that made allowances for miscarriages. Anyway.) Should the first marriage prove barren for a period of ten years, a Master Healer, skilled in such matters, shall be appointed by the Wizengamot to examine the witch and the wizard. If the deficiency be on the part of the witch, and it be not caused by malfeasance on the part of another, the wizard may have the marriage annulled, at his pleasure, and he may marry another. If the lack of issue be due to the actions of another, they shall be held to account as if they had killed one of the affected family. If the deficiency be on the part of the wizard, the witch may have the marriage annulled, and she will the inheritance due her as if the wizard had died, and the wizard may not marry again, except where his new wife has also been found barren, and has been turned away by her first husband.' Apparently, if the witch or wizard could not provide the family with an heir, things got messy. I really find the part about the 'malfeasance of others' interesting – I gather that there were some famous cases where a witch or her family wanted the inheritance of another family, and through spells or potions, prevented the new wife from having children. They were charged with 'impairment of the bloodline and attempted murder'."

"Some other odd items. A wizard can have mistresses, but if they are not legally married to him, their children cannot inherit anything for the estate, even if the wizard acknowledges the paternity. As I said, the laws are set up to make family property and inheritances work. They are not necessarily for the benefit of the people involved. Also, if the wizard was the 'deficient' one, the witch can remarry – I guess no point in keeping a fertile witch out of the family marriage lotteries."

Hermione looked at Susan and Hannah. "So whose going to get to be the 'Lady' of the House, then?"

Susan bit her lip and said, "Kind of hard to tell. Having lived in the dorm for so many years, and then living together, our cycles were pretty much locked in synch. As far as we can tell, Hannah caught about three days before me. Augusta, Nev's 'Gran', says that by custom, it will decided when we give birth. Whoever pops first gets the job, regardless of what the medi-witches say. If I want the top billing, I may have to get on a trampoline to hasten things along if Hannah looks like she is going to beat me out."

Hannah smiled and said, "Sue, stand up and turn around." The tall slim strawberry-blonde witch stood up, and turned her back to the group. Hannah, who was shorter and more stocky than her best friend, also stood with her back to the group of friends. Hannah giggled, and said, "You will notice that Sue's backside is rather petite, compared to mine. Between the two of us, we have decided that, until the gynaecological lottery plays out, she will be Longbottom, and I will be Widebottom."

The ladies laughed, while the men grimaced at seemed to be much more information than they really wanted to know.

Harry asked, "Sort of in a long way around. that kind of brings up another topic I have always wondered about. Hogwarts is listed as a school of 'Witchcraft and Wizardry', but most of our classes seem to cover the same stuff for both. What is the difference?"

Most of the witches blushed a bit, as did a number of the wizards. Hermione and Luna were not blushing, although Hermione looked a bit puzzled as well.

Luna, who always seemed to just take what the world gave her with the same calm demeanour, began to speak, "Oh yes, there are differences, and they were all based on sex, as they should be." Hermione began blushing as well. Luna said "Why blush? It is just the way it is. There is no shame, or pride, in accepting the fact that we are all sexual beings. I have never understood that."

Luna continued, "Harry, you and Hermione were away during what would have been your seventh year. That's when a lot of the sex-based magic was taught. Last night, I spoke to Hermione about the combined Charms and Transfiguration classes where we learned the nature charms which had to be done in the nude, and the sexual charms which had to be nude and in mixed couples. Most of us were really looking forward to that class, and I for one was quite disappointed in the purely 'theoretical' nature of the lessons."

"Anyway, we girls are the ones who are blessed or cursed by nature (depending on your viewpoint), with bearing children. When we first got to Hogwarts, we were taught a number of charms which I gather the boys were not. We were young girls coming into a school full of adolescent boys who were coming into the prime years for sexual energy, so in our first classes we were taught the 'contraceptus' charm and the 'impotentis' spell, to keep the boys unable to perform if we didn't want them to, and to make them unable to impregnate us if we did want them to perform but without those kind of consequences. Girls like some fun too, you know. Later, as it became necessary, we were taught charms to alleviate cramps and headaches. We were taught a spell to prevent our first time from being painful, as I gather it is for both muggles and witches who are unprepared. In seventh year, with all of us having become legally adults and getting ready for marriage, we all learned some charms and spells which were to, as Professor McGonagall put it, 'assist in having a happy and satisfying married life'. These included spells to extend a wizard's, shall I say, endowments and endurance. Others helped a witch have multiple orgasms every time, and so add to her own enjoyment as well as that of her wizard. We witches were taught charms to reduce morning sickness and stretch marks during pregnancies, and milk enhancement charms for while nursing (that was a fun class, although very messy!) I am sure the boys learned some things that I don't know about, but then, I don't know about them."

Seamus blushed a bit "We learned a version of the 'contracepto', which was rather interesting. It prevented you 'coming', which made it so you lasted for up to an hour. This was very popular, at some times, with our girlfriends as well. We also learned a rather useful little charm to make the vocal break less embarrassing – when your voice changed from a boy's voice to a man's voice, it happened all at once, overnight, so you weren't squeaking for a couple months like muggle lads go through. I had some muggle friends back home who got teased mercilessly when that happened.

Hermione thought about this for a moment, giving herself a mental note to talk to Susan, Hannah and Luna, and possibly Minerva McGonagall, to pick up what she missed in what would have been her last year at school. It sounded like it was going to prove useful and perhaps important in the future. She had missed the anti-pain charm, and unfortunately would have appreciated knowing it. Then she thought about another topic which had bothered her off and on for years.

"What about the restriction on underage magic? I can't imagine that you all stayed completely, shall we say, virginal, over summer holidays." She looked around the room at several blushing friends.

Susan nodded, and said "Well, no, I can't say that happened, at least not according to the dorm room scuttlebutt when we got back to school. In _either_ sense of the word. But I don't understand. What do you mean about the restrictions? We knew there were some, but I never had any problems."

Hermione looked even more puzzled. "You all know, Harry got reprimanded by the Ministry for underage magic when he defended himself and his cousin from the dementor attack. I never did magic at home, so I don't know if I would have got a complaint. Did any of you get a reprimand?"

"Also, we all did accidental magic before we went to Hogwarts; I know I did, and it scared my parents a lot. Harry's relatives beat him, and worse, for it. But no reprimand, or did your parents get a note that you didn't hear about at the time? I would think that there would be a lot of issues about that."

Neville said "I know I never got a reprimand, and I am very sure that Gran would have told me if I had. I did magic at home. She taught me a lot of spells that we never learned at school."

Looking around the room, none of their other friends seem to have had problems either.

Hermione started to get angry. "This sounds like only us muggle-born or muggle-raised kids that got watched. Maybe another pure-blood supremacy thing?"

Seamus said, "That doesn't quite work, Hermione. I'm a half-blood too, even more than Harry. At least both his parents were magical, even if his mother was a muggle-born herself. My 'da' is straight muggle, no magic in him at all, although me ma has made some saucy comments after a particularly noisy night that they may not have assessed him properly." Giggling and laughter followed.

Harry thought for a moment. "So none of us got a complaint before we went to Hogwarts, and then only some of us muggle-related ones got caught. I wonder if it is just the specific spells that are tracked, and you only learned those spells when you go to school. Or maybe, it is that the tracking spells are not particularly accurate, so that in a magical household, they. can't tell who did the magic. Or maybe it is the specific wands that are tracked."

"If it is the spells that are tracked... no that's not going to work, because it wouldn't matter who did them, unless... Maybe it is only certain basic defensive spells that are tracked, that only kids would use... "

"What do you guys think of this? If the spells to detect underage magic are attuned to specific spells, maybe the Ministry can adjust them to detect Unforgiveables! We know that, because of bribery and corruption and Death Eater influence, they used to have no interest in tracking down people using them, but maybe now we can use this to our advantage."

"Pansy, can you please get in touch with Kingsley and look into this? I think we may have something we can use."


	6. Bad News

**Bad News **

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

Later that afternoon, after most of the guest had left for their homes, Viktor and Ron took Harry aside, and Ron said "Mate, we have something you need to see. We're really sorry to kill the mood, but we think we have a serious problem. Dark stuff."

Harry said, "Then I think we need to get the core team together." He called Hermione and Pansy over and took them all into a side room, introducing Viktor to Pansy as they went.

Meanwhile, Luna took Sophia and Magda out for a walk around the gardens; the Bulgarian women were rather curious to meet the English blonde, about whom they had heard a lot of disparaging comments from Ron. Instead of the out-of-it dream-queen (as Ron had described her), they found an intelligent, inquisitive young witch who was curious about their homeland, and even more, about the magical creatures which inhabited it.

In the side room, Harry cast some privacy spells, as he had the impression that the news was not going to be for everyone's ears, at least not yet. Viktor pulled out a couple of magazines from a pocket, and said "These are magazines publish in Europe for wizards who like see witches undress. Not just happy undress, like PlayWizard" (Ron frowned at this description, as his sister had 'posed' in that magazine, and the family was not thrilled to say the least), "but doing unhappy things. First translates as 'Wand and Quaffles', and second 'Broom Rider'. I am sorry to bring to attention, but Ron and I think something needs to be done. Maybe something very big, and you are people who can help do."

He spread the magazines on the table. The first showed a wizard with his genitalia transfigured to a massive size, and a full-figured witch who was naked and on her knees in front of him performing oral sex. The second showed the same witch using a broom handle. Hermione and Pansy instinctively hugged their lower abdomens, in sympathy for the pain that must have been caused by what they were seeing. Hermione gagged, and said "My God, what is she doing to herself with that? That would kill her!"

Viktor said quietly, "Look at face."

Pansy's eyes widened as she cried out "Oh no, that's Millie! I knew she was in trouble, but oh God!"

Ron said "One of our team had these. I was going to just burn them, but then I thought I recognised her."

Viktor said, "I thought I remember her from year at Hogwarts during Tournament. Big girl, Slytherin, hang around with children of Death Eaters. I have friend, lawyer, he look up magazine owners – is group called 'Todessener Bund' locate in Germany, but money and owners English. Name translates 'Death Eater Society'. Man in first magazine picture with 'bignesses', his body was found in trash bin; he was French muggle-born."

"All muggle-borns and halfs playing quidditch starting to get hate mail, saying quit quidditch because they have no right to play 'wizards' game'. Ginny Weasley getting hate mail at Harpies. Some calling her 'blood-traitor'. Some saying good she come to senses and dump half-blood abomination Harry Potter, now do her duty to 'true wizards' and have pure-blood babies. If she not agree, they will rape. "

"Look again at face."

Harry looked at Millicent Bulstrode's face carefully, and recognised some ugly symptoms, the blank eyes, and expressionless mouth. He said "She under an Imperius curse. They're using an Unforgivable on a pure-blood. She was one of their side, the dark side, and they're doing this to her!"

He looked at Viktor, and asked "If they are doing this to pure-bloods, what are they doing to half-bloods and muggle-borns?"

Viktor shook his head, "I hear rumours of what in America are call 'snuff flick'; moving pictures where participants actually killed on film. I have heard that they take girls who not pretty, and do things to them, then kill. Having found body of guy in picture, can believe."

Harry sat with his brow furrowed for a long time, muttering things like "Oh, damn, why can't those bastards stay dead!" and other pleasantries.

Finally he looked up at Viktor and the rest, and said, "Thank you, if that is the right thing to say, for bringing this to my attention. You're absolutely right, we have to do something. This is going to get very nasty."

"I think the hardest part of cleaning up this mess is going to be to not sink to their level. I don't want to get rid of the garbage, and then find that I have just become the next Dark Lord in the process. If that does happen, I want you all to promise me that you will kill _me_. If we can only get rid of one set to become the same ourselves, we accomplish nothing!"

"Okay, the first thing we need is information. Where are they making these movies? Where is their money coming from, and where are they keeping it?"

Pansy spoke up, "I'm on it."

Harry nodded, and said, "Thanks. And I'll check with my contacts at Gringott's. Next thing, how do we find Millicent and get her out of her nightmare? I'm open to any ideas."

Pansy said "I think it may take a couple weeks, but I will find out where she is and who is holding her. I just hope we can get her out before they do something more permanent to her."

Hermione gasped through her tears as she pointed at the pictures, "And _that_ didn't look like it was going to do permanent damage? My guts hurt just thinking about it."

Pansy reached over and took Hermione's hands in hers. "Some damage can be repaired, and some, not. I hope we can be in time that the physical damage can be repaired. Whether _she_ can be repaired is another question - whether she can live with herself after this, once the Imperius wears off is another matter entirely."

After the meeting broke up and Ron and the Bulgarians had returned to their homes in Sofia (the capital city), Hermione sat with Harry as he sat lost in thought. She had made Florrie (the house elf) prepare some tea for the two of them, which he seemed not to notice, even as he drank it.

To try to lighten him mood, she told him of the conversation she had had with Luna in the hot tub, before the rest of the 'nudey bunch' showed up. He laughed a little, and seemed more thoughtful than amused, but then returned to his quiet contemplation, every now and again looking over at her with a rather puzzled look on his face. At first, Hermione put down Harry's mood to him considering the problems that they were going to leave behind in the UK as they went to visit her parents in Australia. She knew the matters were going to weigh on his mind, and would require some serious attention when they returned.

Then her long-term insecurities kicked in. Had she said too much? Did Harry just not think of her as a potential marriage prospect, and bringing this up was going to drive him away? She 'knew' (in her own mind at least) that she wasn't pretty, and that Ron had just gone out with her (and become her lover) because he was lazy and she was 'there' for the 'taking'.

Did Harry see this as her bossiness (which he hated) coming out again? Did he hate her for killing the elf?

Did he think this was just her on the rebound, or trying to manipulate him on his rebound from Ginny? She knew Harry really hated to be manipulated. Could this end it between them? Since Ron left (and then showed up with a new fiancée), was Hermione alone without her best friends, like she was before the first trip on the Hogwarts Express (when she met Harry and Ron), and the episode with the troll in the lavatory when they became her best friends?

After about a half hour of sitting with Harry, with the thoughts of how she had failed him, and failed herself, with Harry sitting quietly, occasionally looking at her (as she interpretted his expression) as a strange lab specimen, Hermione told Harry that she had some studying to do as she had exams coming up in the next few weeks. She took her teacup into the kitchen, where the elves were waiting eagerly to finish cleaning up after the party, thanked Harry for his hospitality, and floo'd home to her dorm.

As she left, Harry said he would see her soon, but he didn't really look like he was looking forward to it, all that much.

That evening, Harry wandered the grounds of his estate trying to calm his nerves, and sat for a while watching the bees gathering nectar from the apple and plum blossoms. Why couldn't life stay simple? He smiled to himself remembering the day in Lockhart's class when the pixies picked Neville up by his ears, and he had asked "Why is it always me?"

Hermione's story about her chat with Luna had been a bright light at the end of what had been an otherwise delightful weekend, that ended terribly. He realized that, in his rather depressed state, he had not given Hermione the attention she truly deserved, but he had been rather distracted. His mind was full of thoughts that Gil Granger had been right, and that he should just leave the wizarding world behind, and just get the hell out. He also knew that he couldn't be true to his own nature if he left his friends to face the problems alone. He could run, but he could not hide – he could hide from the problems, but not from himself and his conscience.

Then Harry looked up at the blossom-laden trees and a thought crossed his mind, and stopped his musings. The bees!

The simple hard-working creatures, who pollinated the flowers producing food for everyone, not asking for any thanks. Their own by-product of honey made life sweeter and more pleasant. And if annoyed, they could sting. Sounded like some others he knew.

This was going to require some more thought and some unusual questions to some unusual people.


	7. Visitations and Meditations on Gratitude

**Visitations and Mediations on Gratitude**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

Near the end of April, Hermione had finished her second year exams, and took a couple weeks off before starting her summer semester at St Mungo's. She and Harry had arranged to visit her parents in Australia, where they were continuing their work with the Flying Doctor service. Gil and Elly had decided to move there permanently, but would return to England for Christmas every year to visit friends and family. They had found in their first two years there that the Australian summer was just too hot for people accustomed to snow at Christmas.

From some of the funds that came as a stipend with her Order of Merlin, Hermione had arranged for life-time first-class air passes on Qantas and BA, so that her parents would not be out the money, even though their pay with the Flying Doctor assured them a comfortable lifestyle. Annual (or more frequent, should they choose) first-class flights to and from Australia were not exactly cheap, and on a long haul flight, the difference in comfort level between first class and coach was significant.

The younger and older couples decided to meet in Darwin, where "The Wet" season was ending, so that the humidity should be dropping and the flowers should be at their best. With the lower humidity, the tropical temperatures would not be as oppressive to the younger couple still adapted to English weather.

Harry and Hermione had travelled via the international floo network, pausing to change lines at the junction points, which for convenience and duty-free shopping tended to be located in less-obvious corners of international air terminals. As they changed from the Eurasian line to the Asian-Oceanic line in Dubai, they stopped so that Hermione could pick up some gold jewellery for her mother and cufflinks for her father (and Harry, to be given to him in private). Before they left the floo terminus, Hermione was advised that her brief sun-dress was not culturally appropriate for the local 'environment', so she charmed her outfit into a floor-length skirt and floral blouse with long sleeves.

As they stopped for lunch in the large shopping mall, Hermione was eager to follow up on Luna's conversation, but Harry kept changing the topic to other issues. Mostly, he seemed to want to talk about anything except their relationship (such as it was). Hermione assumed that the main thing on his mind was the situation at home, and the fact that they were going to have to get nasty again. _That_ was obviously something which could not be discussed in an open restaurant.

As Harry obviously didn't want to talk about _them_, Hermione told him of a rather strange thing that she had observed when working at the muggle hospital, and a subsequent conversation she had had at St Mungo's. When she started working part-time at the hospital, she had received her identification card to wear while on shift; on the card was a prominent red 'W'. She also noticed that one of the head nurses in the emergency admitting ward also had a card with this mark, and that this nurse (Sister Abbott) was always present when new emergency patients arrived – if the new arrival was conscious, she would whisper to them, and if not, she would wave her right arm over top of the stretcher. Hermione noticed that the material on the nurse's right sleeve was a bit tighter that on the left. Sometimes the nurse would frown, and stamp the 'W' on the admissions chart. When Hermione had asked about this procedure, the nurse smiled and told her that some patients and staff were to be treated by certain physicians only, and that certain tests were not allowed for these patients. When Hermione showed the nurse her own 'W' card, the nurse smiled brightly and said, "Granger, eh? An unusual name. Do you happen to know my cousin Hannah? She's marrying that Longbottom fellow." The nurse was a medi-witch.

Hermione asked what the forbidden procedures were. The nurse (Jocelyn) said that, by Ministry orders, wizarding patients (hence the 'W') were not to be subjected to any radioactive diagnostic tests or treatments, and that only low-energy X-rays were to be used, and 'W' staff were not to work in the radio-diagnostics or oncology wards for any reason. Any 'W' patients who had severe trauma or broken bones, or needed radiation (or other treatments) for cancer were to be transferred immediately to another facility (which Jocelyn whispered to Hermione was actually St Mungo's). Non-magical staff were told that this was for religious reasons, but Jocelyn didn't know the real reason for this restriction.

When Hermione had gone over to St Mungo's for her weekend shift, she asked her supervisor about this system. He looked around suspiciously, as if to see if anyone was around who could possibly be listening. He said "Miss Granger, I know of your history, and what you have been through, so I know I can trust you with this information. The Ministry order has declared this a Ministry secret, on pain of death. When you attain your Mastery as a Healer, you will be sworn to secrecy about this, but you and your friends fought and bled for us, so I know I can trust you with it. We witches and wizards don't react too well to ionizing radiation; it can decrease our magic badly. Fortunately, we have other methods to accomplish the same things."

"There is a rumour that the decrease in the birthrate and vigour of pure-blood children is because of the increased background radiation from the nuclear testing that the various muggle governments have done over the last half century. The problem with that hypothesis is that mixed bloods and muggle borns are doing just fine. Actually, there was a report done a couple of decades back that indicated that the decrease in pure-bloods was due to inbreeding. The author of that report disappeared, and absolutely no investigation was held – it is rumoured that some powerful families had her murdered, and bribed the ministry not to look into it."

"There is something about radiation that affects us very badly, so the Ministry ordered that no magical should ever be given radioactive isotope diagnostic tracers, or radiation treatments. That's why any patients coming into a muggle hospital are checked for magical nature, and any that have it are sent to us."

Harry agreed that this sounded strange, and also very interesting. Hermione could see the wheels turning in his head as he considered some implications. Maybe there was something he could use in the future, either as a threat, or a weapon, without having to kill people.

Harry had read somewhere that the hardest thing was not when you had to do something nasty, but when you had to _be_ something nasty. Neither he nor Hermione wanted all their fighting and watching friends die would be in vain, if they went down the dark path in an attempt to save their world. There might be alternatives. There had to be! Hermione would definitely prefer that Harry not have to start killing again. She wanted her friend to finally have some joy in his life.

On that point, Hermione was very uncertain as to Harry's presence on this trip, considering his reluctance to talk about their personal situation. If he was going to move on without her, why was he coming along to visit her parents? Was he coming just to get away from England, so he could think away from the immediate concerns? And why wasn't he confiding in her, as he always had before? She had broken up with Ron, who had very obviously moved on – would Harry be moving on too? Did 'moving on' mean leaving _her_ as well as Ginny?

After what, for the young witch, was a very frustrating lunch and stop-over, in spite of her having access to some of the world's most extravagant shopping, the two returned to the floo terminal and proceeded to Australia.

The two had chosen the Sydney terminal so they could visit the picturesque city and its region for a day or two. They took a day trip to the Hunter Valley wine country, and into the Blue Mountains, as well as the harbour cruise and climbing the bridge, before continuing to Darwin on the Australia floo system.

Gil and Elly were waiting for them at the sidewalk cafe outside the Darwin public floo station when they arrived. A chilled bottle of Australia chardonnay was on the table so the young couple could have a cool drink as the tropical heat hit them full blast.

After thanking Harry for the case of wine he had brought for them from their daytrip, Elly announced that their boss was in town visiting relatives, and they had arranged to meet him, his wife, his sister and brother-in-law for dinner that evening. Gil smiled and said, "I think you'll have a bit of a surprise." Harry grimaced – in his experience, surprises were seldom good news.

The four couples met at the restaurant in the hotel where Harry, Hermione and her parents were staying. Elly introduced their boss, Dr Mark Wells (who shook Harry's hand and said "Dr. Marcus Wallaby, at your service", to Harry's puzzled reaction) and his wife Janine. Mark introduced his sister Chrissie and her husband John Black.

The older couples smiled as John turned to Harry, shook his hand, said "Call me Jack", and then hissed "_Greetings cousin, welcome to my lair_." Harry's eyes opened wide, as Hermione's jaw dropped.

Harry responded politely in Parseltongue "_I thank you. May your hunting be successful and your next shedding give you comfort_." John laughed, as Elly stared at him and Harry and asked, "Why are you two hissing at each other?"

Hermione started to lecture, while Harry and Jack smiled at each other. "Harry, and apparently Jack, can both speak Parseltongue, which is the language of snakes!" Gil, Elly and the Wells's were stunned by this comment. Jack's wife Chrissie added "That's why Jack is so successful working with the big salt-water crocs. It seems they speak a dialect of the language."

Harry looked at Jack and said "I thought it was a bit of an odd pronunciation I hadn't heard before." Jack responded "Yeah, the big crocs have a bit of a different dialect than the local snakes, which I gather is a bit different from your European snakes I've chatted with in the animal parks, what you would call zoos. The crocs tell me I have a really thick King Brown accent." He and Harry both laughed.

Hermione looked at her parents in amazement. "You mean your boss and his family are wizards?"

Mark shook his head. "Sorry to disappoint you, young lady, but I'm a nonmaj, as is Chrissie. Janine and Jack are majjies though. I gather you're surprised that what you would call muggles know about the magical world. When you practice medicine with the aboriginal tribes for thirty years, you have to deal with their medicine men, and you run into a fair bit of the native magic. So when I met JJ ( her full name is Janine Jacquelina, hence JJ), her being a witch didn't shock me too much."

"When JJ and I first got together, and she saw I was fairly comfortable with some of the things she could do, she asked me to come to a family reunion down at Alice; Alice Springs, you know. I brought Chrissie along, and she met Jack, and the rest, well, as you say..."

Chrissie laughed and said, "When Jack and I got married, the family kept commenting that I was going to 'take a wiz' for the rest of my life."

Gil laughed. "When we came back to work after last Christmas in England, we brought our credentials in to Mark's office. He looked at us, smiled and said 'So your daughter's a witch!' You could have knocked us over with a feather! I said, 'She may be quite headstrong, but that's not a nice thing to say about her.' Mark just laughed and said, 'Sorry, I just meant that your daughter is 'magical'." Gil grinned at Hermione's discomfort.

Janine smiled and said "Mark came home when Monic...sorry, Elly and Gil, said that they were going back north, and told us that two of his dentists had some visitors from the Old Country, and after a bit of time, they had told him that the young lady was actually their daughter Hermione, and that their real name was Granger. He said there was a young man with her named Harry Potter. Jack follows the foreign news more than the rest of us and was startled, and asked Mark 'Green eyes and wild hair?' Mark was surprised, and asked 'How did you know?', so Jack filled him in on what Harry and Hermione had done."

Mark said, "When Gil and Elly said they had been in a protection program and that the gangsters had been stopped, I had no idea that they were talking about this Voldemort bloke, and that Harry and Hermione were instrumental in wiping out him and his Death Eaters. Good on ya, Harry and Hermione!"

Gil continued "When Mark filled us in on what the wizarding news was saying Voldemort's gang did, and what you had to do to stop him, we were shocked. We knew you two had been in danger, which was why you sent us away with our memories blocked. You sort of filled us in last fall, but not with the horrendous details – Jack did! We had no idea how much danger you had been in. Harry, we are eternally grateful that you protected Hermione as much as you did, and grateful to both of you for what you did. However, HJ, we are also angry that you put yourself into so much danger. You are a very brave young woman and we love you, but don't do it again, please!"

Harry said sadly "We only did what we had to do." Looking at Jack and Chrissie, he said "I assume the news told you about how Voldemort had been trying to kill me my whole life. There was a prophecy linking us, and he kept coming after me." He chuckled, and asked "The reporter who was presenting the news... was she youngish with glasses and curly blonde hair?" The older couple nodded, and Harry and Hermione laughed. The three older couples obviously thought this reaction strange, so Hermione said "Rita Skeeter's devotion to the truth is truly _legendary_. By this, I mean she has absolutely no contact with reality - she usually makes up her delusional stories out of whole cloth. We'll have to tell you what happened from our point of view. There may be some points where we agree with what you heard, but I suspect they will be few and far between."

Jack said with a sly smile, "I thought she was a little full of herself, so I checked other sources as well. That bit of crumpet lies like a sidewalk, doesn't she?"

Harry laughed at this description. "Before going into that, however, and giving you a more thorough description of her, I have to ask. You seem to be very free in acknowledging the magical world here. Doesn't Australia follow the Statute of Secrecy?"

Jack shook his head. "We don't make a big deal of it, one way or another. As Mark said, the aborigines have their own magic, and make no secret that they use magic, although they keep the actual practice of what they do a tribal secret. You have to remember, most of us ended up in Oz because we got kicked out of the UK. There's sort of an institutional, you might even say pathological, dislike of rules here, particularly ones made up by stuffy supposedly high-born twits intent on keeping all the power in their own hands."

Harry furrowed his brow in thought, looked at Jack and asked, "When you spoke to me in Parseltongue, why did you address me as 'cousin'?"

Jack said, "Well, according to the news, you are now the head of the Black family, so I suppose I am supposed to be subservient to you. Just don't push it, mate."

They all laughed at the likelihood of that ever happening.

Harry then said, "But I'm only an adopted Black. My godfather made me his sole heir, so I'm not really from the family."

Jack shook his head, "Doesn't matter. Two reasons. One, all the old families are interrelated to some degree. For the really high-born ones, they are so interrelated that they are pretty much inbred. Have you noticed how many of the English pure-bloods are single children, and usually dumber than a pile of kangaroo poop?"

"Second, my great-several-times-over grandmother was a witch named Lady Abigail Potter, who 'emigrated' in the early 1800's. She was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Caroline, who was married to the Prince Regent, who later became King George the Fourth. When he tried to throw over his legal wife for his mistress, a lot of the people and the nobility took Caroline's side of the matter. Great-granny Abby was clearly informed that, if she emigrated (that is, got the hell out of the way of what the prince wanted to do), there was a big land grant waiting for her outside Adelaide. Otherwise, things would not go well for her. When she got to her land, she took on a young man who had been 'sentenced to transportation', as they called it, for pulling pranks on the local squire. He had this strange gift, in that any land he worked on had very little problems with the poisonous snakes which are so common in Oz. He became my great-however-many times grandfather."

Harry laughed, which puzzled Jack a bit. He asked "Did all your family pull pranks?" Jack nodded, and asked why he had asked such an odd question.

Harry responded that his father and godfather had been in a group of inveterate pranksters, known at school as 'The Marauders'. He commented that pranking seemed to be a family trait with the Black's. Chrissie nodded, and, holding her husband's hand lovingly, announced that the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree in this or the next generations either. She said that they had some rather mischievous children, and expected the worst from the grandchildren, who were still too young to cause too much damage.

The conversation went on into the night over dinner and drinks. The young people, Hermione's parent, and their new friends arranged to get together the next evening as well to visit some more. Hermione was very interested in hearing more of how the magical world operated in Australia.

One aspect of the Australian wizarding society that Harry discovered in conversations with the Australians, was how many Aussie wizards and witches were from the lower classes for British society, where in England, it seemed that the high-borns were in proportions well above the muggle average. Jack and Janine speculated that this was due to so many of the lower class magicals being 'exiled in transportation' (or EIT, as the Aussies termed it), as very few high-borns, muggle or magical, were sent away for crimes such as vagrancy or stealing food in order to survive.

Harry and Jack agreed to meet at Jack's work with the National Parks department the next afternoon (before their dinner meeting), where Harry could see (and chat with) some of the big salt-water crocodiles Jack worked with.

As they sat in a pub near Jack's office after his work was done, chatting over some local beer, Jack asked "So, what have the stuck-up pure-bloods done for you lately?" Harry thought, and said, "I don't know that they have done anything much _for_ me, but then again, they haven't done anything _to_ me either, so I suppose, given my life up until a couple years ago, I should be grateful."

Jack choked on his Foster's. "Grateful! Why the hell should you be grateful to them? You're the one who killed the evil bastard for them (and I gather that term is true both literally _and_ figuratively). All they seemed to have done is sit on their fat asses and let you and your friends do all the bleeding and dying! They should be falling all over themselves doing things for you. And what do they do – they give you a medal you don't want and some money you don't need and gave away anyway!"

"Whenever I hear of someone getting a medal, I remember there was a rather uncouth nonmaj movie some years back that says 'Medals are like haemorrhoids – sooner or later every asshole gets one'. I can't say you didn't bloody well deserve it! But you have done more with the money they tried to buy you off with, than they have done for the whole country that you gave them back their control of."

"I gather that now, under their law, as head of two houses, you are required to have two wives, and also _allowed_ to have as many concubines as you want. You know, in the Bible, it says that no man shall serve two masters. I suppose the same goes for two mistresses!"

"Harry, as I see it, they want to keep you distracted while they play their games and keep their strangle-hold on power. You and Hermione and your friends are a threat to them and their cushy deal. A real viable and serious threat, and they want to keep you from seeing that."

Harry smiled "I have a schoolmate who told me the same things. She is now working for me as the head of my spy agency. I _am_ planning to make a few changes when I get home. Actually, I would be eternally happy if they would just leave me alone, but they don't seem capable of understanding that, so I am going to do something about it. Probably some things that they won't appreciate."

Jack smiled and said "Good on ya, lad! Be sure to stick it to them right and proper. If there's any way a well-practiced prankster distant cousin can help, just let me know. But remember, you don't have to do it all yourself. I hear that there are some in the government who are not happy with the way the old order is trying to reassert itself. Instead of them using you, turn it around and _you use them_!"

"One question, Harry. Why don't you just walk away from it all?"

Harry sighed. "Jack, you can't imagine I haven't thought about it. I thought really hard about that. I grew up poor, or so I thought or rather, so my relatives made me believe! I would be happy to walk away from the money and the properties in the UK. Some smart person told me not to let the possessions own me. The problem is that, if I just do a runner, the government seizes the property and the money, and after keeping their totally undeserved cut, pass it on to the next in line. For the Potter inheritances, there is no one within three generations, and the government would just keep it all. For the Black fortune, the next in line is a pure-bred bully and son of a Death Eater who was the bane of my existence all through school. He is a convicted criminal for his part in the war, and in an absolute opposite direction from who I would want to inherit."

"My Godfather, Sirius Black, said in his will that I should use the money for good, and I don't think restoring the fortunes of a family of murderers is the way to go."

"At the end of the day, I feel that I would be dishonouring my parents and my godfather if I just walked away from what they left me when they were murdered. I don't see how I can do that to their memories."

Jack shook his head. "Rock and a hard place, lad. Have you thought of moving your holdings outside the country, where they can't get their hands on it? Or endow a hospital with some of the property? "

Harry smiled "I have thought of that. Unfortunately, some of the laws limit the amount that you can take out of the country at one time."

Jack smiled "Remember who you are talking to, cousin. Some of my ancestors were kicked out of the old country for being pranksters, and some for being good people who stood up for what they believed in. You don't have to _tell_ them you are doing it. If you, very publically, donate land and buildings to some very prominent charitable causes, and sneak the portable money out while they are distracted trying to figure out what you're up to (or at least trying to figure out how you snuck the properties out from under what they can get their hands on), you can get the rest of it out of their reach permanently."

Harry sipped his beer, and nodded, smiling a nasty grin. "Maybe, after a while, they will come to be grateful if I leave _them_ alone."

Jack sighed as he sipped his drink. "Harry, watch out for trying to take on too much. You're not responsible for curing all the ills of the world." You can't do it all, regardless of what others will want you to do. You're not responsible for rescuing the old lady's cat from a tree."

"Something working with the crocs and the snakes has taught me – just because they are predators doesn't make them evil. Be careful not to confuse the two."

"There is evil out there, s'truth. There always has been evil, and there probably always will be, regardless of what the religious types want us to believe. The Irish have a term 'ordinary decent criminals', to distinguish between those who are just robbing banks for the money themselves as opposed to those doing it to fund terrorism. You're going to have to take a look at the problems they throw in your face, and decide if these are ordinary decent villains, or are they a real threat to your society, and more importantly, to you and your loved ones personally. If the former, let the police, you call them Aurors, look after them. That's _their_ job, damn it, not yours!"

"However, if they are a threat to you, have at them. And if I can help, just let me know."

While Harry was visiting the crocodiles that Jack worked with (and learning the term 'Pommie Bastard', which to many Australians is one single word), Hermione and her mother were having a heart-to-heart talk.

The two women sat on the patio of Hermione's hotel rooms, sipping iced tea. Hermione looked at her mother, and with what seemed to Elly like misty eyes, said "Mum, I'm confused and a bit worried. And a bit scared. Can I ask you for some advice?"

Elly looked at the strange young woman who was sitting beside her. Since she sent Hermione to that strange school in the Scottish Highlands, she had spent less than a year altogether with her daughter, between school and the time she spent with the Weasley's, and she felt that she barely knew her daughter any more. It still puzzled Elly why Molly Weasley had just assumed that Hermione would spend several weeks each summer with the Weasley family who had lots of other children, rather than with her own parents who had only Hermione. Elly looked at her daughter with a critical eye, and saw both the battle-hardened veteran who had seen death and dealt it out herself, a woman who had loved and lost, but at the moment looked a little like the lonely frightened-yet-eager eleven-year-old girl she had sent off to boarding school.

Elly quietly asked "Of course you can, Hermijean." Using her pet name for her daughter from when she was three, she assured Hermione that this was her loving mother speaking. "Is it about Harry, or about Ron? Or both? Or the thing with the elves?"

Hermione hung her head down, and nodded. "Yes, Mum, yes. All three"

Elly sighed. This sounded like it was serious, and that Hermione's whole life in the wizarding world was falling apart. Most of the time, her talks with her daughter were pretty intellectual, but this time it sounded like Hermione's heart was in danger of breaking. Elly took Hermione's hands in hers and said, "Okay, tell me what happened. All of it."

Hermione spoke of the suicide of the elf. She talked of how she and Ron finally realized that they were really not right for each other, and how Harry and Ginny's relationship had come badly undone over the two wanting different things in their lives. She spoke of how she thought Ginny was being selfish and attention-hungry, which Harry hated, and _that,_ Hermione agreed, was not good for Ginny – the two girls had fallen out over this. She talked about the gathering at Harry's home, and Luna's assumption that she and Harry would be together and that Luna wanted a part of what she had assumed that _they_ had. She spoke of the visit of Ron and Viktor and their news. She spoke of her own heart-break when Ron and Magda revealed their engagement. She spoke of the visit by Shacklebolt and the Weasleys, and the bad news that had been revealed at that time. She then spoke of telling Harry about Luna's comments, in an attempt to amuse him, at which point he completely clammed up. She talked about trying to get Harry to talk about their relationship, and the fact he kept changing the subject.

As she sat there in tears, Hermione hung her head and said, "I worry that I am driving him away. He hates it when anyone gets bossy, and I think he feels that I am trying to push him around. I think he hates the fact that the wizarding world is forcing him to have two wives, among other things – even if the idea of two wives (and possibly concubines) may sounds intriguing to him, he hates that he is being forced into it. He hates that they always want him to clean their messes. Why should he be the one who has to do that? I worry that Harry feels that he is going to have to go into battle and kill more people, or at least the Ministry will want him to do so. I would hate him to have to do that. I would hate to be part of that, but I can see that someone has to do something. Why is it always Harry?"

"I am so grateful for everything he has done for me, ever since we met on the Express. When Ron was making nasty remarks in first year, Harry didn't. He was the one who insisted on coming to rescue me from the troll. And everything since. He has done so much for me that I can never thank him enough."

"Last fall, when we came to 'remind' you of who you are, I was terrified how you would react. Harry came with me and gave me the support I needed to contact you and release your memories. He has always been there for me!

"I think that he is wanting to just escape from the magical world and disappear, and that could mean cutting me out of his life, too! I don't know if I want to marry him, like everybody now assumes, but I lost my one best friend in Ron, I lost another best friend in Ginny, and I really worry that I am about to lose my last and only other best friend!"

"But if he doesn't want to be around me, what is he doing coming on this trip to visit you? I'm very grateful that he did, but I am confused by it, too."

"Do I push him into marrying me, and find that neither of us wants that? He hates being pushed, but how do I get him to meet me halfway on this, or at least talk about it? How do I tell him what I want when I don't know what that is, myself? How do I tell him what I feel and how I feel, when he won't talk to me? Do I tell him I am there for him, and then sit waiting for him to come to me, if that is what he wants?"

"How long do I sit mooning for him? That's not the kind of girl I am and he knows it, so that would be so wrong for both of us."

"Mum, what do I do?"

Elly looked at her daughter. Half of what Hermione had said sounded like the little girl on the playground worried that her so-called friends wouldn't play with her, and half sounded like a weary warrior looking at yet another battle where she might lose her only friend and comrade.

She took a sip of her tea, and said, "Hermione, dear heart, what do _you_ want to do with your life? Your Dad and I expected you would go to university and become a renowned professor, or a doctor, or something. This is one reason why you and Ron weren't good together – you wanted to learn and learn and learn, and he didn't. He did not respect this in you. Does Harry respect your love of learning?"

Hermione nodded.

Elly said, "How do you feel about Harry fighting and killing again?"

Hermione shook her head, "I hate it. I hate that he would feel compelled to do it, and I would hate what doing it would do to him! They called him 'the boy who lived' – now he is finally 'living' and they want him to go back to being 'the man who killed Voldemort'."

Elly asked, "How do you feel about being married to Harry, and having to share him with another woman? Or several other women, for that matter?"

Hermione looked at her mother and said, "I honestly don't know. I always looked to you and Dad as my role models, and assumed that one loving woman and one loving man was the natural state of affairs.

Elly smiled at her description of her and her husband (and thought, the girl really doesn't know half of what goes on in a marriage; comes from being away during the critical teenage years) and snickered, "Well, perhaps the state of most marriages, but hardly of affairs. Your father and I have discussed you and Harry, and the possibility of you two getting married. I don't think either one of us would be happy about you being part of a plural marriage. We don't think it would be fair to you! Our concern is for you. Yourself. And not for any of these hypothetical others. We don't want to see you hurt, but we worry that you would be hurt more by being left out of Harry's life."

"Could you just be Harry's best friend without being his wife? I don't know. Would his wife, or wives, let you be his best friend, or would this cause unbearable friction? I don't know. I _do_ know that I would not want my husband's best friend being an attractive and brilliant 'other woman'." Hermione smiled at her mother's assessment of her attractive-ness, even if she did not share the idea that she was pretty (mothers are biased, after all).

"Hermione, your Dad and I became friends first, and then fell in love. I know you love Harry, but I don't know if you are 'in love' with Harry, or whether you ever will be. There may be worse things than being married to your best friend; lord knows there are a lot of arranged marriages that work out well. In the old days among the upper classes, arranged marriages were the norm, and there was usually no real love between the couple, who then looked for love elsewhere – some were so-called successful marriages and some weren't. You will have to consider what you want, what you can put up with, and the critical part, what you cannot put up with, and what you cannot do without."

"I do know that neither Gil or myself would be happy if Harry went back into battle. Some people, men _and_ women, come to crave the excitement of battle. Some, I am told, become addicted to killing. In the book 'Moby Dick', a character talks about the excitement of killing (he was talking about whales, but the principle is the same, and the danger is even greater). I certainly hope this is not the case with Harry. He seemed to be finding his way, but I worry about him.

Elly bit her lip, and then said, "Hermione, you have to take a hard look at what you want, what you can tolerate, and what you can't. With Ron, you found that he could not tolerate your love of learning, and you couldn't respect his obsession with sports."

"Once you have thought about what you want and what you need in life, talk to Harry. Sit him down and talk to him about what you need from him. Be precise. Don't ask him to 'discuss your relationship' – men don't do that! Harry is a good young man, but he is a man, and therefore, rather clueless. Comes with the territory. Men don't want to talk about 'relationships', they _are_ willing to talk about what you want and what you need. Harry needs to know what you want from him."

"If he finds that intolerably pushy, too bad. You are a pushy, bossy person (Hermijean, you know you are, and you know you got it from me), and if Harry can't live with that, it's better to know now. If he can't put up with you telling him what you need, then walk away. It will break your heart to do it, but better now than him breaking your heart later by continually disappointing you when you find he cannot give you want you need in life.

Hermione gasped, "But what if he is just still hurting from the break-up with Ginny? I don't want to leave him like that, if it's just that he's not ready yet. I know that I am still hurting from Ron."

Elly nodded at her intelligent and obviously caring girl. "Hermione, you are my daughter. If Harry is the one for you, then I will love him with all my heart as your 'chosen'. If he is not, then good riddance, because he is not good enough for you! And you deserve only the best! However, if you think he needs a bit more time, then give him some time. Just don't give him too much – you have to look after yourself and your own heart too."

By this point, both women were in tears, but confidences had been shared, and advice had been given, as hard as it was to give and to hear. Hermione had a lot to think about.

When the four couples got together for dinner that evening, Hermione asked Janine and Jack about the magical world in Australia, and how it worked with non-magical people fully aware of their presence.

Janine shook her head. "I wouldn't say that the non-magicals are completely aware of all that goes on. Most have some awareness of our part in the world, but most have a live-and-let-live attitude, and as long as we don't bother them, they don't care much, and don't seem to want to know more. Everyone just gets busy with their own lives, and if someone says they will pop over for a visit, no one really cares whether you come through the front door or through the fireplace. Actually, not a lot of fireplaces up here in the north, but down in Tasmania where they do get cold weather, there are some. Usually, we set up an exterior doorway as the floo connection, so it looks pretty much the same whether a maj or non-maj is arriving."

Hermione looked at Janine, and said cautiously, "I notice you don't use the term 'muggle', as much as we hear it at home."

Jack nodded, and said "We only use that term for a non-maj that is particularly bigoted, to the point that they are a danger to us and everyone else. Like calling someone a bitch or a jerk (or worse). We notice that in British stuff we see, they seem to use the term just like they would describe poorer people as the great unwashed or the riff-raff. It's like if we refer to the natives here as 'Abos'. We see it as a not particularly subtle form of racism. I know some don't think of it that way, but you both well know that in magic, words have power, so we try to be careful not to give ourselves airs of superiority like that. Besides, it's almost un-Australian to pretend that you're better than the next bloke."

As they laughed, Harry brought up a question which had been on his mind since Hermione brought it to his attention. He said, "Mark, you're the only non-magical medical doctor I know who is fully aware of the magical world, not to belittle the rest of you who may also have some insight into something Hermione mentioned to me. What can you tell me about the sensitivity of magical people to radioactivity?"

Mark looked stunned, and Jack and Janine gasped. Both men looked around to see if anyone was listening.

Elly frowned and said, "I know we were advised not to use high-powered X-rays when doing dental exams with the aboriginals, but I didn't know there was any particular reason. I thought it just had to do with local customs, or their spiritual beliefs. I gather, Harry, that there is something rather more serious going on. Yes?"

Mark looked at Harry and Hermione and asked, in a conspiratorial way, "What do you know about it?"

Hermione mentioned what she had learned at the hospital (both magical and non), that by Ministry decree, wizards and witches were never to be subjected to radiation therapies or diagnostics. She mentioned that she had been told, in a very hush-hush way, that this was considered a state secret, but that was about all she knew specifically.

Harry said that he had never heard of this situation until Hermione had mentioned it – as he had never had non-magical medical treatment before he went to Hogwarts (his uncle was not keen on doctors discovering residual injuries which might have legal ramifications), and Madame Pomfrey using magical diagnostics only, the topic had never come up. He had no idea how muggle (he reminded himself that he had to stop using that word) medicine worked.

Mark nodded. "Okay, that sounds reasonable. I was rather afraid (from your asking the question) that one of your friends had gotten a bad dose and reacted to it. I'm very glad that hasn't happened."

"Harry. Hermione. The basic reason for the prohibition is that ionizing radiation, beyond a certain threshold level, destroys a person's magic."

The two young people gasped. Hermione asked "What do you mean, 'destroys their magic'?"

Mark nodded sadly. "You may know that Britain used to test its nuclear bombs in the Australian desert, what we call the outback. Everyone was kept away from the actual test sites for quite some time to let the radioactivity decrease, but then the local tribes were allowed back in. However, once they got within a certain distance of the blast site, some of the members of the tribes would fall over screaming in pain. Invariably, it included the tribe's witch doctor and his family. Many died, some horribly. This all happened at distances that the non-magical medical officers said were completely safe from dangerous radiation exposure."

"Those who had been magical, who survived, had no magic any more. Their magical essence was gone. Totally! Some thought that this was due to a particular sensitivity to radiation among the aborigines only, but then other bomb tests with non-native populations found that about 2 to 3 percent of the soldiers taking part, within a certain distance when the bomb went off, or checking the site afterwards, would fall over screaming too. It was found that the ones who fell had all been magical, and now had no magic. Some magicals can live without their magical core, and some couldn't. Those who can, often feel they are living only half a life."

"Most of the ex-magical aborigines, and some of the 'imports' (those like us and your parents), found they couldn't tolerate living as non-magicals and committed suicide. For the soldiers, this seemed more common with the Brits who were taking part in the tests. The Australia War Department concluded that this was because in Australia, there was much less separation between the magical and non-maj worlds, so the adaption was easier. However, for the British soldiers who lost their magic, there was such a separation (as you well know), such a stigma and such contempt for the non-magical by the high-born magicals, that they felt they were as good as dead anyway. So they took their own lives.

"In the UK, this knowledge was very rapidly suppressed by the powerful people in the Wizengamot, and made a wizarding state secret."

"Here, we get taught about it in medical college as we have to deal with the natives, and so have to make sure we don't do them no harm. Not only would we hurt them, but it destroys any trust between our peoples, which has been very hard to achieve given the history of white settlement here."

"From the distribution of the effects around the bomb test locations, they found that the devastating effects occurred at levels above what low-powered dental X-rays would give, but below what you would get from radioactive diagnostic drugs, higher powered X-rays for orthopaedics, or from cancer therapies. It was also found that there was a higher sensitivity in foetuses, which accounts for some of the non-magical children of magical, what you in Britain would call 'squibs'. Studies showed that if a pregnant witch was near a source of natural radiation, such as spending much time in the basements of houses built over granite rock, or flying on the Concord airplane because it flies higher than other aircraft, there was a much higher chance the child would be non-magical."

"Kids, you can see why the upper crust types want to suppress this, can't you?"

Harry asked, "Does this apply to magical 'things' as well? For example, if my wand got exposed to a high dose of radiation, say going through the X-ray machine at some airports, would it be destroyed too?"

Mark shook his head. "No idea. Everything I have seen just talks about the effects on people."

Harry and Hermione sat there nodding their heads, with the horror evident on their faces. However, as the party broke up, only Hermione noticed the slight smile on Harry's face. This worried her greatly.

That night, Harry heard his hotel room door being opened, briefly. Instantly, his wand was in his right hand as he called "Accio glasses! Lumos!", and looked at who had entered. Elly Granger stood there in his room in a shear blue nightgown.

Harry gasped. He looked at Elly and said "What are you doing here in your nightie?"

Elly smiled and asked, rhetorically "You don't like my nightie? Okay." With her thumbs, she slipped the straps off of her shoulders, and her gown drifted to the floor, leaving her quite naked.

Again, Harry gasped. "Elly, what do you think you are doing?"

Again Elly smiled, and said "You know Harry, I hadn't thought you were that dumb. It should be fairly obvious what I am doing. I am here to express my gratitude, actually _our_ gratitude, for all that you have done for our daughter."

"I understand that you and Ginny are over, and that you are not committed to any other woman at this time. This is good, because I would not do this if you were. I also understand that this may be the last time we see you, so this is perhaps my only opportunity to thank you in the most profound way a woman can thank a man."

Harry said, "Elly, you don't have to do this. I can accept your thanks in words."

Elly smsiled. "Harry, I have seen you and talked with you. You seem incapable of accepting thanks in any way. You almost seem unable to accept that people _want_ to thank you for things you have done."

"And yes, I realize that I do not _have_ to do this. If I had to, it would be an obligation. It is not. This is a gift from me, from us, to you. Freely given.

Harry's eyes widened as it became clear what was about to happen. He asked, "I don't suppose I can talk you out of this?"

Elly smiled and giggled slightly. "You've already talked me out of my nightie. It took Gil a good six months to do that!" She laughed and added, "Besides, where do you think Hermione learned to be so stubborn?"

"Harry, move over in the bed. I'm getting chilly standing here like this and I need your warmth." She walked over to Harry's bed and slid under the covers. "Put your arm around me, please. Thank you." She turned towards Harry and kissed him.

Harry's body reacted to Elly's presence, as she reached up and removed his glasses, then turned to put them on the night-table.

Harry said "You said 'your gratitude'. Gil knows about this?" He was starting to think of the repercussions (possibly painful) of what now seemed to be inevitable.

Elly smiled, and in a soft sultry voice said "Of course. We discussed it and figured that this was the only way to indicate how much we appreciate what you have done for us, and for our Hermione. Now, Harry, if you don't want _me_, Gil says he is quite willing to take my place in your bed."

As Harry sputtered, Elly laughed quietly. She giggled, "Hermione is right, you are _very_ easy to tease!"

She laughed gently. "Harry, you have to realize that Gil and I are from a different time and background than you. When we were growing up, the songs were saying 'All you need is love', and people were talking about free love, and sharing all you are. I gather from Hermione that you were raised in a desperately puritanical house by people who hated you. She has told us that you have a lot of trouble accepting that people love you, even that people _can_ love you, and want to do things for you, and be with you. Harry, we love you. Please let me show you that."

Some time later, Elly was cuddled up against Harry's chest. She said softly, "That was nice. Thank you for letting me express how much we appreciate what you have done, and the part you have played in our Hermione's life."

She said, "You know, when we found out that Hermione was a witch, it was quite a shock, and at the same time, not. Both Gil and I had been raised on stories of wizards and elves and dragons – my Dad and his were at Oxford at the time when Tolkien and the other 'Inklings' were telling their stories to each other at the pub where some of the graduate students congregated. Gil's dad and mine overheard some of the stories, and fell in love with them. My proper name is Elbereth Galadriel, and I was named for the angel who lit the stars and a queen of the elves. Gil was named for Gil-galad, a powerful king of the elves whose name means 'Starlight'. Our dads were reading astrophysics, and were rather obsessed by the references to stars. Hermione was almost named 'Celebrian', after the daughter of Galadriel who married a powerful leader of the elves and the forces fighting an evil sorcerer – that might not have been a bad name for her."

"When Hermione told us that there were elves at the school, and your friend Hagrid had a dragon, we were over the moon with excitement. When I met Hermione's elves, I have to say I was a bit disappointed, because I had this image of these tall majestic creatures that my dad had read to me about." She giggled. "Finding that elves were actually short beings, with big floppy ears, was almost too much to take. Then Hermijean told us some of the things your friend Dobby had done, and I realized that these were very powerful magical people. I look forward to meeting more of them. If we stay part of your life, I gather you have quite a few for us to meet."

Harry thought for a moment and then frowned. He looked down at the naked woman in his arms, and asked, "What did you mean that this may be the last time we see each other? I have to admit that I liked the view you just gave me, even if I was quite surprised at the opportunity. But I don't understand why you feel this is the end for us."

Elly sighed, "Hermione told us about the situation back home. Well, your home, now, not ours. She is very worried that you are going to disappear from her life, rather than fight the bigots and idiots. She has lost so many friends. She lost Ron and with you breaking up with Ginny, she is sort of on-the-outs with her too. She told us about Luna's ideas about the two of you, and says that you seemed really reluctant to talk about it, to the point that she is worried that you would rather not see her in that light. If you and she part ways, I would doubt we would see each other again, so I took this opportunity, perhaps my last chance, to say what I had to say."

"She was also confused as to why you came to visit us. Were you checking out places to escape to? To run away to? But if so, was she part of your plan or not? You wouldn't talk about it."

"Harry, you are one of the only good friends Hermione has ever had. My little girl was very lonely growing up, and she is terrified that she is about to lose her last friend. If you run away, she would lose you. If you fight, she may lose you, because you may lose yourself. She's scared."

"Harry, please talk to Hermione. She needs you to do so, and I think you need it too."

She rolled towards him, and kissed his chest. As Harry started to react to the feel of her bare breasts moving against his chest, she said, "Now, Harry. I am going to say thank you again. Do you think you can cope with that?"


	8. ReAlignment

**Re-alignment**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

Hermione was already at breakfast with her parents when Harry came down from his room. He approached the table cautiously, not knowing quite what to expect from Elly (who had left his room around 2 in the morning) or from her husband, or for that matter from their daughter.

Gil looked at Harry, looked at Elly, then back to Harry, and said "Thank you Harry." The younger man started to relax his vigilance.

Elly looked at him with a twinkle in her eyes, and asked, "Did you sleep well, Harry?"

He responded, "Yes, thank you, I slept very well."

Gil and Elly started to laugh, and Hermione started to giggle. Harry looked at her in shock, and asked "You knew?"

Hermione looked at him and asked "Who do you think transfigured the soup spoon into a key to your room? Harry, in my family, we discuss everything. Everything! If you are going to stick around with us, you will have to know that and learn to deal with it. Mom was telling you something that you didn't seem to be able to accept from me. Harry, thank you for everything you have done for me." She leaned over to Harry and kissed him.

Harry sat back, stunned. He picked up his coffee cup, and took a large swallow, burning his mouth. Fortunately, he was facing away from the others when his spit the coffee into the plant beside him. Hermione handed him a glass of water, and as he tried to quench the heat, she waved her wand at his mouth, murmuring a healing spell she had learned.

He gasped, and mumbled "Thank you."

He looked over at Gil and Elly, and said "Nothing in my life has prepared me for the last few hours. I am just not used to people being 'nice' to me." The other three laughed at his sheepish look, which indicated that Harry was completely out of his depth. Elly smiled and said (pretend-haughtily), "'Nice', that's what you call it? I thought I did a lot better than just 'nice'! You seemed to enjoy it at the time. Maybe I should have another go."

Elly and Gil laughed, while Hermione and Harry blushed furiously.

Elly reached over and patted Harry's hand. "Don't worry. I have expressed my gratitude, I think, to my satisfaction. Once is sufficient. And Harry, you really do tease easily!"

After breakfast, Harry asked Hermione to take a walk with him. She agreed, and looked over at her mother with a nervous look on her face. It was obvious to the two women that this was the moment of truth for Hermione and Harry. Elly nodded to Hermione to go. This sounded important, for both of them.

As they wandered into the hotel's garden, they found a bench, and Harry sat down, and gestured to Hermione to join him. He looked extremely nervous, and Hermione braced herself for his first words, good or bad. This could be the end of everything, or the start. She didn't know which it was going to be, and the suspense was unnerving.

Harry started talking, almost as if to himself, but obviously to her. "Hermione, your mother tells me that you are afraid I want to cut you out of my life. Is this true?"

Hermione nodded.

Harry looked hurt. "Why would you ever think that?

Hermione pointed out that when she had tried to talk to him in the last few weeks since the party, he refused to talk about them and their situation. She told him of her lingering hurt about Ron, and her shock that he had moved on with his life so quickly. She told him of how she worried that he would hate her for the suicide of her elf. She told him of her dread of abandonment.

Harry reached out and took her hand. He told her of his worries that all his friends were moving on, Ron and Ginny with their quidditch teams, and Hermione with her school and medical studies. He told her how he was sorry that he was neglecting her feelings when she broke up with Ron, as he felt caught between the two of them and didn't want to hurt either by seeming to favour the other, thereby leaving Hermione without support from her best friend. He spoke of his great fear that he was being dragged back into the battles within their world, with the politics and the bigotry, and his pre-occupation with what he could do. He spoke of his wanting to just flee, and his feelings of being unable to leave the wizarding world without his protection. He spoke of his frustration that he seemed to be the one that everybody expected to fix everything. He spoke of his feelings that his parents and Sirius would want him to stay in the wizarding world and help where he could. He spoke of his sense that if he ran away, he would not be honouring their memories, and abandoning what they had died for.

He spoke of his obligations if he stayed, and his self-loathing if he ran.

He then said the words she longed to hear. He said, "Hermione, I need you in my life. You are my best friend, and I cannot live without you."

He then said something she had never expected to hear. "Hermione, will you please marry me?"

It was more of a plea of a desperate man drowning in his troubles than the request of a man offering her almost the whole world.

Hermione thought about her discussions with her mother and father, and she thought about her conversation with a certain blonde (and nude) witch. She thought, "This is too soon. I haven't thought through what _I_ want. Do I want Harry as a husband and as a lover? Do I want to have children with this man? Do I want to have children at all? Is he asking me only out of desperation as the only way he can keep me around? Is he just on the rebound from Ginny? If I say 'no' would I ever see him again? This is too soon."

She looked at the longing on Harry's face and she smiled as she came to a decision. She thought, "Better too soon than leaving it too late. Much better!"

"Harry, I accept. I will marry you. Thank you for asking me."

Harry hugged her and kissed her with all his might. As this was considerable, she pushed him away slightly, and mumbled "Not quite so hard, please. I know my parents are dentists, but really you don't need to use so much force to get your point across. Harry, we will have lots of time and opportunity; you don't have to get all your, our, kissing in just one episode."

"Now, just to straighten out some details. Will I be Mrs Potter or Mrs Black?" She snickered.

Harry looked surprised. He remembered Hermione's detailing of Luna's inquiry as to this topic.

He said "I don't know. I hadn't thought that far ahead. I guess I never really thought of myself as a Black. To me, I have always been just Harry Potter, so I think it would be Mrs Potter. I think that my mum and dad would like it if you become Mrs Potter. But if you want to be Mrs Black, I'm willing to negotiate."

Hermione smiled at him and kissed him again with slightly lowered eyes. "I think being Mrs Potter would suit me perfectly. I do appreciate being given the choice."

"Okay, next item. Who is going to be Mrs Black? Are you thinking of Pansy?"

Harry looked stunned. This was not something he ever imagined being asked by the woman who had just agreed to marry him. "I don't know. I have to admit that I never thought about it much. For all that Pansy has given me an unbreakable oath of loyalty, I'm not sure I trust her all that much, yet. I mean, for most of the time we have known her, she did her best to make sure I would never trust her – I know in my mind that I can, but in my heart it is kind of hard to get away from that history. Anyway, like I said, I didn't really think about being a Black, so I really haven't considered the options. Who do you think would be good for the job?"

Hermione looked at him in amazement. "You're saying I get to choose your other wife?"

Harry sputtered, and Hermione laughed. She said "You know, you do tease easily." She kissed him again, and out of the corner of her eye, noticed her parents in the other side of the garden hugging each other and smiling to each other.

Harry bit his lip, and said quietly, "Hermione, you know I value your opinion. You're a lot smarter than I am. Maybe not 'choose', but certainly I would want your advice on the choice. Actually, I think it might be wise to leave the job open for a while."

Hermione looked at him with a puzzled expression. "How so?"

Harry nodded as he thought. "If you recall, Pansy said that a lot of the Old Family marriages were essentially social and political alliances, not love matches. If I have to have a second wife because of wizarding politics, maybe I... No, maybe _we_ should use that fact to our own advantage. Jack suggested I turn the tables on them. If the post of Mrs Black is vacant, there is the opportunity to work some of the politics."

Hermione looked at Harry in mock disgust. "If you're going to turn into a political animal, maybe I had better reconsider."

Harry looked at her with sudden tears in his eyes, and replied "Please Hermione, don't even joke about that. Don't! I couldn't bear to lose you."

Hermione was reminded that, for all Harry's strengths, in some ways he was still the little friendless abused orphan she had first met on the train. Her flippant remark had hit far too close to the bone.

She kissed him again, and said "Damn, you're fragile sometimes. Okay, no reconsideration. So, Mrs Black is on hold. For a while, anyway."

Harry smiled and hugged her, and added, "Just as long as Mrs. Potter is willing to be held for a while too."

Hermione smiled and said "I think I can manage that. Okay, so what about Luna?"

Harry looked a bit surprised. "God, I just proposed to one woman and she has me marrying the entire neighbourhood! Okay. Luna? Well, I like Luna. She's fun to be with, certainly got a different point of view on things, and she is a good and very faithful friend. We owe her a lot, with helping run the DA while we were hunting for the horcruxes, and fighting at our sides. I could accept her as a continuing part of my life. But as a wife, or rather a concubine? I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that."

"I mean, I always assumed it would be just me and my one wife, when I allowed myself to dream that I would survive the war with Voldemort. I was shocked when I was told that I had to have two wives, or they would take away the inheritances that my parents and godfather had to die for me to have. To add another, I don't know. What do you think? Hermione, could you accept Luna as a part of our family. She mentioned that you would be the 'Lady of the House', so you should have some say in the matter. If I remember correctly, she offered to crawl into _your_ bed, too."

Hermione punched Harry in the shoulder. "You're trying to dump all the hard decisions on me again! I like Luna, but as I told Mum, I'm really not certain how I feel about having to share my husband. Husband – I like the sound of that. You are right though, we do owe her a lot, but that much? Then again, you could do much worse. Can I think about it some more?"

Harry nodded. "I think we both need to think about it some more. If we are going to stay in the British wizarding world, and right now, I can't see how we would not, we're going to be doing things we never thought of before, and living in a way we never thought of. We need to think about a lot of things."

Harry stood and taking Hermione by the hands pulled her up to her feet. He said "Shall we go tell your parents? I believe custom dictates I have to ask their permission."

Hermione looked at him and shook her head. "Harry, wizarding couples still need to do that. But in the regular outside world, things have moved on. They don't do that anymore. However, I think that they would be pleased if you did."

When Hermione and Harry told Gil and Elly of their agreement, Harry asked them for their permission to marry.

The young couple were shocked when Gil and Elly both said "No!"

Hermione burst into tears. She felt she was going to lose her parents again, or her new fiancé.

Then Gil smiled and hugged Hermione. He said "It is a father's duty to look after his daughter's interests, even when she doesn't. I do not give my permission for your marriage, unless Harry can promise me a couple of things."

Harry quietly and formally asked, through his tight throat (at the apparent rejection) "What promises do you require of me, sir?"

Gil replied, "Hermione tells us that you are being as-it-were 'called back into active service', to fight the bigots and idiots. Is that correct?"

Harry nodded.

Gil then said, "In a fight, people get hurt. You know this. In a war, you have to kill people. You know this, and you have done this. But this fight is likely going to be different, Harry. It will be a political fight. They can be just as vicious, but not necessarily as deadly, most of the time. I would rather you and Hermione got away from it completely, but that's apparently not going to happen."

"Harry, we raised Hermione in the church, and one of the Ten Commandments is 'Thou shalt not kill.' They also say 'an eye for an eye', so self-defense is obviously allowed.

"In a war, people are trying to kill you, so you have to kill them before that can happen. In the fight you are going into, this may happen, and if someone tries to kill or hurt you or Hermione, I expect you to protect her and yourself. If you need to kill in self-defence, then it is self-defence, and I can accept that. But I will not have you planning to kill to make the political fight easier. I will not have you plan to kill! That is murder, and I _will not_ have my daughter marry a murderer! Will you promise me that you will not kill unless it is absolutely required to save other lives?"

Harry nodded, and replied "Gil, I promise you I will not kill again, unless it is absolutely necessary to protect others. I have killed, and I do not like it. I hate that I could not find any other way to do what had to be done. I will not kill if it is just for my own protection." Hermione looked at him in shock at this declaration. He turned to her and said "Hermione, I know what killing can do to your soul; Voldemort murdered to create his horcruxes, and it split his soul into pieces. I will not kill just to protect myself." He smiled a bit, and added, "Now, I am not saying that my alternate responses will be altogether pleasant for the other guy."

Hermione hugged Harry, who then turned to Gil and Elly. He asked, "Is this satisfactory, and are there other promises you require?"

Gil looked at Elly, who nodded her agreement. Gil looked at Harry and spoke "Do you remember our discussion when we were in Crete? Yes? With all that ouzo, I wasn't sure you would. I said I was not happy that your world was going to require you to have two official wives, and perhaps more sub-wives or concubines, seemingly to have you repopulate the wizarding world all by yourself. Well, with some help from Hermione and the others, obviously."

Gil reached over and took Elly's hand. "Harry, please promise us that, whoever you may choose as your other wives, be certain they are someone that Elly and I can respect as well. We need to meet them, and see whether they are _worthy_ to share our daughter's husband. We will not have our daughter a laughing stock because of your bad choices! Promise us that you will do nothing that will hurt Hermione because of your other wives. I know you will hurt each other occasionally; all humans do. But I insist that you respect Hermione and make sure that she is not hurt in this. Promise us this, or say goodbye to us."

Harry thought about this statement. Gil and Elly were not happy about what might transpire and the obligations that Harry was taking on, and their concern was for the woman he (belately) realized that he loved as more than just a sister. He nodded and said "I promise you, just as you say. I will not cause Hermione heartache or ridicule because of choices that I am obliged to make concerning marriages."

Gil looked at Elly, who nodded. Harry had made promises which would be very difficult to keep, but they knew he would keep them or die trying. Gil nodded as well, and held out his hand for Harry to shake. As Harry took his hand, Gil pulled him into a tight hug, saying "Welcome to the family!"

That night, Harry heard his hotel room door being opened, briefly. Instantly, his wand was in his right hand as he called "Accio glasses! Lumos!", and looked at who had entered. Hermione Granger stood there in his room in a bulky bathrobe.

She looked at Harry in the bed, and said "Harry, you have been like a brother to me, and I have been like a sister to you. I know you have seen me on the beach with my breasts exposed, and in your pool with nothing at all on, and I have seen you in a similar state. But for most of the time we have known each other, you did not see me as a girl, or as a woman, and I did not think of you as a man - just a man. By the time we were at an age to think in those ways, I was with Ron and you were with Ginny. There was no chance of us being just a man and a woman together, or thinking that way. It is now time that that changed."

"You have asked me to be your wife. You have offered to be my husband, and I have accepted. It is time we started thinking of each other as a man and a woman." She took a deep breath to steady her nerves.

She opened her bathrobe and let it slide to the floor. She stood in Harry's gaze wearing only a shear purple nightgown.

She smiled with a sultry look, and said, "Oh yes. Mum says you don't care for nighties", as she slipped the straps of her gown off her shoulders, letting the garment fall to the floor, joining the bathrobe.


	9. The Gathering Swarm

**The Gathering Swarm**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

When the newly engaged couple returned to Harry's home in England, reactions were mixed, to say the least.

Most of their friends sent congratulations on their engagement, and asked when they could expect either a wedding invitation or birth announcement of the first new Potter (or both).

Ron's note wished all the best to his two best friends. He said that he knew that Harry and Hermione were well suited to each other's temperments and talents, and knew that their house would be quieter than his (apparently Magda was also a yeller).

Pansy and Luna both wished the couple well, and hoped for an expedited wedding, as both had their own matrimonial ambitions as they pertained to Harry (Pansy as a possible Mrs Black, and Luna as a concubine in the House of Potter now that it was decided which house Hermione would preside over).

Molly and Arthur Weasley sent best wishes, and commented that they had always felt that both Harry and Hermione were part of their family and hoped both would still consider themselves honourary Weasleys.

Ginny Weasley's reactions were themselves mixed. Part of her was telling her that Harry was hers, and Hermione was trying to steal her property. Part of her was saying "Well, I'll going out with every guy I want to and I'll show him what he gave up. I'll make him so jealous he will leave her and come back to me." Part of her was thinking, "Hermione is my best female friend. She wouldn't hurt me, and if I can't have Harry, I am glad it's her". Part of her was saying, "It was nice when it lasted but it's over for us". And part of her was saying "What the hell have I done?"

Ginny realized that she still had a lot of the spoiled little girl in her, who had lost her favourite toy. But she also realized that she was a grown woman, and that Harry and she were not right for each other, and that 'they' were over. But it still hurt. She wrote a note to Hermione, reminding the older girl that they were sisters in all but blood, and wishing her well. Her note to Harry asked him to remember his 'little sister' fondly, and hopefully without pain. Then she smashed every dish and bowl in her apartment.

Shortly after returning to England, Harry called a meeting of Pansy and all his elves, with Hermione sitting in. The plan they had put into action, before he left for the south, was starting to bear fruit. All the families with connections to the old Death Eater families had extra elves in quiet attendance. Not that they ever noticed, as for most of them elves were just as unnoticeable as their furniture, and they treated them with as much attention and respect, which is to say, none.

They had had to work out some limits on their surveillance, as their purpose and intent was somewhat contrary to the loyalties of the resident elves. However, the elves bonded to the families were often very disturbed themselves as to the goings-on, as the contempt that the Death Eaters (and much of the wizarding world) had for the other magical races was well known, as was the equality and friendship practiced by Harry Potter and his friends. Soon, there were small bands of guerrilla elves all through England and much of Western Europe.

As most people could not tell one elf from another, unless they paid close attention, the additional elves were effectively hidden in plain sight.

Most of the old families were keeping themselves clear of suspicious activities, as they had seen what happened to those who backed Voldemort in the past few years. Those who were lucky and had been not pivotal in the Dark Lord's activities had their property and wealth confiscated by the Ministry and many were serving long prison terms; those who were in the inner circle and had been primary perpetrators on some of the horrors had either been killed in battle, or sent through the Veil after their property was passed to those they had harmed (or at least their surviving relatives).

However, the elves reported that there were a few families, or more exactly, some members of the old families, who were up to no good. Many had moved their gold out of Gringott's (to the goblins' distinct displeasure) and as much of their other property out of reach of the Ministry as possible (usually violating several statutes about removing valuable assets from the UK without paying appropriate taxes and duties).

A number of small groups of these less respectable wizards had formed a number of companies with overseas operations, officially dealing in the import- export business, usually of various kinds of contraband, and the production and distribution of pornography. One such group were the ones 'employing' Millicent Bulstode. Pansy's teams had not yet located the young witch, but had rescued a number of muggles and muggleborns who had been tortured and otherwise abused (for the entertainment of those who had been too young or had not yet been recruited to wear the Dark Mark themselves, and so had 'missed out' on all the Dark Lord's fun).

Harry thanked the group for their excellent work, and asked if there were any areas where they needed added resources. Pansy indicated that there were some holes in the coverage in Ireland and central and eastern Europe, which needed some work. Harry said he would contract Seamus Finnegan and Viktor Krum, and see what he could arrange.

Later that week, Seamus popped over (quite literally, as his apparition skills were not as noiseless as he would have liked), bringing with him a couple elderly elves, one of whom wore an 'Irish' style beard. Seamus said that this elf was a leader of the elves in Ireland, and so was someone of considerable knowledge on elven kind and perhaps would have some useful influence. The elf indicated that he and his people had heard of Harry Potter and the great Hermione Granger – he told Hermione that he had heard of Mikey's suicide, and that he and his folk did not hold it against her in any way; humans and elves had always kept their own secrets and so misunderstandings, even tragic ones, were inevitable. The elf also said that the elves knew that Hermione's heart was good and her intentions honourable although misguided. The others of Harry's elves who were in attendance, along with Hermione's two, nodded their heads in sad agreement.

This elf was the only one that Harry or the two ladies had ever seen with a beard, and so they asked the elf about it (apologising in advance if the diminutive creature found their questions rude). The old creature indicated that he was from the line of elves who had been kicked out of Spain in 1492, with all of the other Jews.

This was the first that Harry (or Pansy, or for that matter, Seamus) had heard about religious beliefs among the elves. Harry had already noticed that most people of the wizarding world were either secular or held religious beliefs similar to those of the more general population (although often in more archaic forms, due to the slower evolution of ideas in the wizarding world). The fact that at least some of the Irish elves were Jewish was a distinct surprise.

The old elf indicated that his name was Moishe Cohen, and that he was of the priestly clan in Judaism (the Levites). His grandfather had been one of the elves who left Spain when Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand expelled all the Jews, the same year that Columbus sailed for what he thought were the Spice Islands of the Indies. As an orthodox Jew, and a rabbi of his people, he felt it was only right to wear a beard, and living in Ireland, he had "conformed to the wearing of the local style". Harry and the others were amused to hear the elf's Irish lilt.

Moishe indicated that most of the elves from the Galatia region of Spain had moved to Ireland, as it was a very tolerant Catholic country (at the time) with a Celtic heritage and language (and people with red hair, as were the more hirsute of the elves) and so they felt there would be less of an adjustment for their people. The leader of this immigration was the great rabbi 'Lepra', Moishe's great-uncle. When they arrived in Dublin, they told the locals that they were the people of the great Lepra Cohen. Moishe chuckled. He said "When the name got used for all of us, and mangled by the pronunciation of the locals, we didn't have the heart to correct them. After all, they were such kind people who were giving us sanctuary".

Hermione's eyes twinkled as she worked out the elf's reference. She asked "And what about the green jacket and breeches we see in the pictures." Moishe smiled at her and said simply "Party clothes; that's the only time most humans saw us, and so they thought that was our regular dress. And young lady, before you ask about the pot of gold, the family story is that, as the ship bringing us to Ireland entered the harbour at Cork, there was a brief rain-shower, and a beautiful rainbow ended right on the quay where we were to disembark. Some were heard to say that being welcomed by the indigenous Irish elves to the new land, where we could be safe from the inquisition, was like being handed a pot full of gold, and the phrase got passed around and made it into the muggle population."

Moishe grinned and said, "You know, we were also the ones who introduced praties for Ireland, in partial payment for their welcome."

Harry looked at the elf in puzzlement. "Praties?"

Seamus shrugged, "Potatoes, Harry! You'd think that rooming with me for six years, you would have learned at least _some_ rudimentary Irish!"

Harry looked back at the elf, with a suddenly very interested look in his eye. "When was that? I thought potatoes were introduced once the Spanish took Peru, much later."

Moishe shook his head. "We elves knew about such things from our relatives in the Americas. You use the 'Accio' spell; we have similar magic to pick up supplies from all over."

Harry asked intently, "How far away can you pick something up?"

The old elf looked back at Harry, seeing that there was something quite serious behind this question. "I don't know? Praties from Peru was easy; it's not too far, although it was easier when I was in my youth. Since I hit my third century, I'm not as spry as I was."

"When I was young, we used to have contests to see who could reach out the farthest. I could easily pick up rocks from that debris pile beyond Mars, and some brought in snowballs from the rings of Saturn. They were pretty tired after such an effort, though."

Harry asked "Did you ever try to work together to reach out farther?"

Moishe looked at Harry sharply. "Aye, we did, once. And I know you are wanting to ask how far we could reach out then, so I will. One time a long while ago, back before our people were kicked out of the Holy Lands by the Romans, we got about twenty of our strongest 'gatherers', and set them the task. They practiced for several months before making their great effort. They all rested up for a number of days before the 'Great Grab', as they were calling it. The claim is that they reached out to the small, almost invisible, companion of the brightest star in the winter sky, and grabbed a chunk of it. It was very heavy and very hot, so they thought it safer to release their grip on it just above the top of the air where their success could be seen by all. As the pressure and heat released, it appeared like a stationary bright star, over a little town a little ways away from Jerusalem, where a young Jewish family from Nazareth were staying for the Roman census. They kept it contained to a degree, so it took a couple of weeks to cool down, but it did remain visible for some time. That was the time that a baby was born who became that famous rabbi from Nazareth, whose teachings many of your folk follow; we respect his teachings, but not necessarily the practices of some of his followers, as they have caused my folk, both large (like you) and small (like me), such grief over the years."

Hermione's eyes widened. "That was The Star over Bethlehem?"

Moishe smiled, "Aye, that was The Star."

Harry had gradually worked out that the star Moishe had referred to was the white dwarf companion of Sirius. As he smiled at this reference to his godfather, he asked the elderly elf, "Could your folk do it again? If you had help?"

The elf smiled and asked "Now why would you be wanting a chunk of a star? You can't hang onto it, too heavy and too hot. The elves who did the task were completely exhausted by it, and had to spend a long time recovering." Seamus had given him some idea of the tasks that Harry had taken on.

Harry asked, "What if we had more elves to help, and some other magical folk to hold it in a confined space, like a protective box?"

Moishe looked suspicious, "That sounds like goblin magic, young man."

Harry smiled and said thoughtfully "Yes it does, doesn't it. How about if you just took a bit from our local star, instead of reaching out so far?"

Moishe smiled, and said, "Now that, I could still manage meself on a hot day relaxing in the shade, without even breaking a sweat to take the chill of me mug o' beer."

Harry thought for a moment. "How big a chunk?"

The elf looked at him, wondering what the young wizard's mind was up to. "Well, If I did the job meself, just from our own sun, I think I could manage a piece about the size of this room. One of my young men could manage a chunk about the size of this house. Now the chunk from the Great Grab was said to be about the size of a sports ball, say a quaffle or beachball – they are said to have remarked that, once they had a good hold on it, they might as well bring as big a lump as they could - that's why it took a couple of weeks to cool off to invisibility. I gather that there is still a band of radiation where the bits of it dissipated.

Later that week, Harry and Hermione made an appointment with the goblin who had been looking after Harry's accounts at Gringott's. The following Monday, the two were ushered into the office of Accounts Manager Grippinghand. The accounts manager was accompanied by two (what appeared to be, to their untrained eyes) younger goblins, whom Harry and Hermione assumed (correctly) to be the elder goblin's assistants.

Harry bowed his head and greeted the goblin formally, "Accounts Manager Grippinghand, thank you for meeting with us. I am Harry Potter, head of the Ancient and Noble Houses of Potter, and of Black. My companion is my intended mate, my fiancée, Hermione Granger."

Grippinghand bowed and said, "Welcome Harry Potter, Mr Potter and Lord Black. Welcome Miss Granger. How can Gringott's be of service?" Goblins had little use for chit-chat, and tended to get down to business quickly.

Harry asked "Please address me as 'Harry', as I have little time or use for my formal titles."

Grippinghand smiled (a goblin's smile being a rather scary sight). "In that case, please address me as Grippinghand". Both nodded.

Harry then said, "I have a number of requests today. First, I wish to arrange to my fiancée to have access to my assets in my vaults here at Gringott's. Second, I would like to look into making some investments both inside and outside of the UK. Third, I would like to deal with some matters of my inheritance and family issues. And fourth, I wish to learn more about the nature and powers of goblin magic."

Grippinghand nodded "Ah. I understand. I can assist you with your first three requests, only. Your fourth request has been anticipated, and I have been instructed to request the attendance of Senior Strategic Analyst Farflenurg. The Senior Analyst's time is valuable, and I will not request his presence until we have dealt with your first matters."

"I can arrange access for your intended mate, who I understand is the first of at least two and possibly more; however, you must realize that there are necessarily restrictions which apply to this request. I must first ask this question - which of your two houses will Miss Granger be marrying into?"

Harry smiled at Hermione, and said, "We have decided that she will be the mistress of the House of Potter." The goblin nodded. Harry thought for a moment, looked puzzled, and asked, "What restrictions might those be, and why would they apply? I presume that your comment about the number of mates has to do with my being the head of two houses."

Grippinghand nodded "That is correct. Gringott's keeps track of the legal obligations of its account holders, and as the head of both the Potter and Black families, you are the possessor-of-record of two of our longest standing accounts. Therefore, it is customary for us to know something of your situation. We have been following your progress and, as you asked, have been working with your associate Miss Parkinson. This is also why your request to learn more about goblin magic was anticipated."

"As to the restrictions, we mean no disrespect to your fiancée, but Gringott's has been in operations for two and a half millennia, and we have seen many attempts to gain unauthorized access to the accounts of major investors. These attempts have been both legal and illegal, and one of the more common ways of trying to gain access is through romantic liaisons. Therefore, there are standard restrictions for unmarried account holders, and in the case of heads of hereditary accounts, further restrictions as to what items may be accessed."

"As your fiancée and the future Mrs Potter, Miss Granger would be allowed access to only one-half of one percent of the Potter family accounts, and this would be restricted to the liquid assets only. She would not be allowed access to heirloom items, except with the explicit and detailed permission from yourself. As she is to marry you as the head of the Potter family, she would have no access to the Black family accounts, and it would be vice versa for your future Lady Black. Upon your marriage, she will be allowed access to forty percent of the Potter family holdings, including heirloom items. If, on your death, she is the sole survivor with no issue, then she would take full control of the account. If at that point, you have other wives surviving, she would, as first and primary wife, have access to seventy percent of the assets, including all heirloom items, while the other thirty percent would be shared among your concubines and secondary wives."

Harry looked at Hermione, who looked puzzled. He turned to Grippinghand and asked, "Why are the amounts restricted? And how much would that one-half of one percent be, roughly?"

Grippinghand looked at Harry and Hermione and said, "You have to remember that our responsibility, here at Gringott's, is the preservation and advancement of the financial well-being of our clients. The human portion of the wizarding world, at least here in England, is extremely patriarchal, so the preservation of the family fortune is in the hands of the male head of family. In the case such as yours, there must be provision for the support and well-being of additional wives and concubines, as it would be unwise to have one branch of a house destitute while another is in luxury. There have been cases in the past where the first wife tried to starve a second wife to death. We find that to be unacceptable behaviour and contrary to the financial welfare of the house, and so policies were put in place. As to the access limit," Grippinghand turned to an assistant, who passed over a piece of parchment, "according to a current evaluation of your family account, Miss Granger will have immediate access to roughly one quarter of a million galleons. Is that adequate?"

Harry had to laugh at the stunned look on Hermione's face, even though he knew he would pay dearly for it later. She mumbled "That's over 12 million pounds. Bloody hell!" She turned to Harry and said, "I knew you had money, but bloody hell!"

Harry turned to the goblin and with a smirk, asked, "If we had decided that she would be Lady Black, how would this change matters?"

Grippinghand looked at Hermione, and said "It would change it a great deal. The Black family has been very wealthy for many years." The implication that the Potter fortune was not of the nearly same level as the Black treasury was not lost on the young, and rather stunned, woman.

The goblin then turned back to Harry. "You had some other business for me to attend to. Please proceed."

Harry explained his ideas for the schools and holiday camps. The goblin was a bit taken aback by the idea for the schools, as this would require the expenditure of funds, with little opportunity for a financial return, and that was not usual business practice. However, Grippinghand could see that the long-term improvement of wizarding society, particularly the reduction of prejudice, would be a long-term benefit to all.

The idea of the holiday camps excited the goblin. These could make some serious coin for Harry, and significant fees for Gringott's as well (as investment bankers and real estate brokers), particularly when it came to acquisition of additional properties in Africa and South America. Grippinghand said that the appropriate documents would be prepared, and could Harry return in three days to sign the papers.

Harry asked if Gringott's had branches in Tahiti and Australia, and possibly in Brazil and Vanuatu. Grippinghand advised him that Gringott's had major branches in all major world capitals, and either subsidiary branches or reciprocal arrangements with other banks in most major cities. For a client such as Harry, provisions could be arranged for whatever banking needs he had in mind.

Harry then asked whether he could arrange for the transfer of funds into accounts in Australia and Tahiti to start, to the initial amounts of twenty million galleons, for the purposes of the investments into the first few summer camps. These funds would be drawn from the Black family accounts.

He then added a request which stuck both the goblin and Hermione as odd. He asked that half of the funds be in the form of the local muggle currency, and be accessible from muggle banks if required. Grippinghand asked for the reasons for this rather odd arrangement, as most wizards only dealt with the magical side of the bank, although all Gringott's branches have non-magical outlets, primarily staffed by humans. Harry responded that the construction and supplying of the holiday camps might require the hiring of non-magical local contractors or staff, particularly if they were to serve non-magical people as well, and so would need ready access to means to pay for these services. Harry thought it might even be useful to have some sort of outlet (similar to the automated bank machines becoming universal in the muggle world) on site at the camps – these would be Gringott's ATM's of course. Grippinghand nodded at this rather well thought-out request, and agreed to look into it.

The goblin asked "What other matters did you wish to discuss today?"

Harry said "As I am now engaged to Miss Granger, I will need to prepare a will, in case of unfortunate circumstances or events." Hermione looked at Harry sharply, wondering what he was starting to plan. He saw her look of worry, and reached out for her hand. "Hermione, love, I am not planning to get hurt or killed. It's just that, given my history, and that there are some people who hate me, it is prudent to prepare for the worst while you hope for the best. You know that it is only in the last couple years that I have even had the option of hoping for the best."

Grippinghand nodded. "This is wise. However, I must point out that, as the head of two families, you will require two separate wills. I assume Miss Granger, soon to be Mrs Potter, is to be your principal beneficiary for the Potter assets. You will need to modify this will on the event of your marriage, and for any changes in your family conditions or numbers."

Harry nodded, and then added, "I would also like to make some declarations and changes to the line of succession as Lord Black."

Grippinghand said, "I might need to consult goblins and human experts in our legal department, but this can be done. What is it that you wish to accomplish?"

Harry said, "A number of things. First, I wish to correct an injustice, by reinstating my godfather's cousin, Andromeda Black Tonks, to the family. Second, I wish to declare her grandson, my godson, as my principal heir and the heir to the title of Lord Black as the head of the House of Black. Third, I wish to arrange to on-going protection for both of these relatives – there are a number of people who hate me and consider Mrs Tonks a blood-traitor, and declaring her to be a favoured relative may make her a target."

"Fourth, and I don't quite know how to word this so I will need your expert advice, I wish to disinherit Narcissa and Draco Malfoy in such a way that Draco will never get his hands on the Black estate, but to do it in a way that may benefit them and the rest of society. I have not discussed this with Hermione, or my social advisor, who may have some ideas to add as well, but my basic idea is this. One, disinherit the two outright. Two, provide a trust fund for Narcissa Malfoy, to the tune of one hundred thousand galleons, provided that for a period of not less than twenty years or so, she not abuse or advise others to abuse any other magical creatures, with the condition that if she does abuse anyone (and I suspect that it would most likely be a house elf), the trust reverts back to the Black family and a final stipend of ten galleons would be hers. She would have access to the interest only, until the twenty years is up, and then, if she has complied with the conditions" (Hermione thought, 'meaning she behaved herself') "she would have the money free and clear."

Grippinghand asked "Why do you propose such generous terms for someone who you mean to disinherit?"

Harry said, "I have come to understand that her actions have been almost completely a matter of family and social politics, not due to inherent or personal malice. Much of what she has done was out of love for her son and heir. She is the blood sister of Andromeda Tonks, and the cousin of my godfather. If she _can_ change her ways, I would want to encourage it. I would also like it known, among the pure-bloods who can be turned from the Dark side," (Hermione snickered at this phrasing), "that I am not the monster that some try make me out to be."

"However, when it comes to Draco, I am content to be the monster he expects. With him, there was malice and it was personal. I do not wish him to ever inherit the Black family titles, or fortune, or as much as a paving stone from in front of the house. However, I also see that, unless giving something to strive for once he has served his sentence, he has no reason to change his ways. Therefore, I was thinking of a trust fund of ten thousand galleons, to which he will have access to the interest only for a period of forty years after his release from Azkaban, with the same behavioural conditions as his mother, and the same free access if and when he completes the test, and the same final payment if he doesn't."

"Both are to be informed of the trust funds and the conditions, and I want to arrange for surveillance to confirm their compliance. I would think that a grace period would be where compliance doesn't need to be complete, say three months, after which any slip and the trust ends. What do you think?"

Grippinghand nodded, and said "I don't know that we have ever prepared a trust fund which is so generous, both financially and personally, where I would expect a more vengeful attitude. I will consult with our people, and we can discuss it when you return in three days. Is this acceptable?"

When this was agreed, Grippinghand stood and said "Thank you for working with Gringott's. I wish you and your intended mate health and prosperity. I will now summon Farflenurg."

As Grippinghand left the office, an even older goblin entered. This one was even more expensively dressed with the previous one, and was accompanied by four assistants.

The goblin spoke, "I am Senior Strategic Analyst Farflenurg. I understand that you have some questions concerning goblin magic"

Harry responded formally, "Senior Strategic Analyst Farflenurg, thank you for meeting with us. I am Harry Potter, head of the Ancient and Noble Houses of Potter, and of Black. My companion is my intended mate, my fiancée, Hermione Granger. Please just address me as 'Harry', as I have little time or use for my formal titles."

The goblin smiled. "I have heard that you are an unusual wizard. Most that we have dealt with insist on their titles and trappings, in a vain attempt either to curry favour or to impress. I understand, from the notes that Grippinghand's assistants recorded, that you wish to set up holiday camps where all magical folk would be welcome, as will non-magicals. This is also unusual, but I and my superiors feel that this has many benefits to both your people and mine."

Harry was amazed at how fast word of his plans had gotten around and been assessed by the goblins.

Farflenurg then said, "Harry, I am required by my superiors to ask you some questions concerning your dealing with Grippinghand."

Harry was taken aback by this declaration, and waited for the questions. Was Grippinghand in trouble for agreeing to the schools (as a bad business decision)? He said "Please proceed."

Farflenurg looked at a parchment set in front of him by one of his assistants. "Do you have any concerns in your dealings with Grippinghand?"

Harry said "No. Grippinghand has dealt with me, as far as I can tell, fairly and honestly."

Farflenurg nodded, and made a mark on the parchment in front of him. "Are you satisfied with Grippinghand's advice to you concerning your properties and fortune?"

Harry responded "Yes"

Farflenurg asked, "Would you be prepared to continue working with Grippinghand to handle your financial matters?"

Harry said "Yes, I would."

The elder goblin nodded, and made some notes on the parchment and signed it with a flourish, whereupon it was handed to one of the assistants and carried with apparent reverence out of the room. "She will be pleased to hear your words. With your confirmation of satisfactory service, Grippinghand is hereby promoted to Senior Accounts Manager. Such a promotion can only be achieved when the head of a senior house expresses satisfaction. I do not use your term of "Ancient House' as goblin hereditary records go back well beyond the setting up of the human dynasties."

"Grippinghand will appreciate the promotion, as it comes with the provision of a higher salary, more assistants, and she also would appreciate a lighter workload at the moment, as she has a new clutch of eggs to attend. As she has been handling the Potter and Black estates, it has been many years since an opportunity to obtain this declaration of service satisfaction was possible"

Harry gasped, and Hermione spoke up. "You called Grippinghand 'she' and said she has a new clutch of eggs."

Farflenurg smiled (a truly frightening sight for most people). "Yes, _'she'_, and this is her seventh clutch. I gather you thought Grippinghand was male, as she does not have the secondary sexual characteristics that you mammals possess," gesturing towards the shocked Hermione's bosom. "We are related more closely to the great dragons and birds, than to you humans. Our ancestors were predators. When we, in your terms became 'civilized' or as we remember it, when we shed out tails for the last time, we found that the financial services business suited our temperments. Hence, the foundation of Gringott's. Lord Gringott was the head of the goblin nation and founder of the bank two millennia and a half ago. We keep the name for sentimental reasons, and to remind us of the stability required to engender trust among others."

As Farflenurg grinned at this bit of historical information, Harry and Hermione responded with their own grins.

Farflenurg spoke again. "I have told you these things in confidence. Some of your people have called us many things, and the fact of a reptilian ancestry would lead to further derision. Harry, you have asked for information about our magic and our powers, and these are closely guarded secrets for my people. Your actions over the years have indicated to us that you are worthy of our trust and our confidence – from your look of surprise I gather that you thought I just analyse financial trends. Harry, as a Senior Strategic Analyst, my work involves consideration both the political and social aspects of our world, as these strongly affect the financial sector. I must warn you, though. Do not violate this trust or we will become angry. You would not like me when I get angry."

The goblin was puzzled when Hermione started to giggle at this blatant threat. Soon Harry joined in to her laughter. The goblin frowned at this rather odd reaction to a very serious issue.

After a moment, Harry turned his regard to the goblin. "Senior Strategic Analyst Farflenurg, please forgive us our reaction to your warning and much-appreciated statement of trust. There is a muggle movie picture and television show about a man who has been exposed to a strange radiation, and when he is angry he turns into a monster. You used the same phrase as he used to warn others of the consequences of his anger. Again, our apologies."

Farflenurg made a mental note to view this muggle movie, smiled and continued. "Forgiven. What aspects of goblin magic are you interested in? I would presume this is with regard to your efforts to eradicate prejudice and bigotry from your, rather from _our_ world. I say our world, as there is prejudice everywhere, and it would be better for all if this could be reduced or eliminated, and we could just hate each other as individuals."

Harry was stunned as he realized he had just heard the goblin make what could be construed as a joke.

Harry asked "I am curious to know about some ways that goblin magic differs from human magic. In particular, I assume that the anti-theft wards you place on vaults prevent people from coming and going without permission."

Farflenurg nodded. "You may have noticed that whenever you have had access to your vaults, there is always a goblin in attendance. I believe that Vault Attendant Griphook is the one assigned to your accounts. The vault attendant's presence deactivates certain protective charms, which would otherwise kill the miscreant attempting entry."

Harry nodded. "Later today when I access the vaults, I will remember to thank Griphook. His courtesy and attention for detail is appreciated."

Farflenurg smiled. This was definitely a different sort of wizard.

Harry continued, "Do the wards prevent things or energy from entering or exiting, or do you need special charms for that?"

Farflenurg looked puzzled. "You will have to be more specific. Things cannot be taken out of the vaults through the wards without permission as this would constitute theft, but energy is generally allowed to escape. All matter has some inherent radioactivity, which gives off particles and heat. That is how the core of the earth remains molten, which powers volcanoes and continental drift. If the heat was not allowed to escape, over time the temperature in the vaults would rise. In the case of the Black family vaults, certain artifacts have been there sufficiently long that the heat build-up would have melted the gold coins and ignited documents and books, which I am sure, you would prefer not to have happen."

"From what I know of your fiancée, she would very much like access to some of the rare old books in the Black family vaults. She will have to wait for you to allow her specific access (in your position of Lord Black), or will have to coax your future Lady Black to allow her this favour.

Harry decided that this goblin's quiet sardonic sense of humour was a sign of the possibility of a long and enjoyable friendship.

Harry asked, "What about the radiation itself? I have heard it is not good for magical humans. Does it affect goblins as well?"

The goblin got a shrewd look on his face. He asked, "What do you know of radiation?"

Harry shook his head. "Not much. I know that non-magical humans use it in their medicine, and there are a lot of materials that give it off, and that atomic weapons give off a lot of it, which stays around for a long time. Other than that, nothing really. I am told that non-magical people study it in physics, but that's not a topic they teach at Hogwarts."

Farflenurg nodded. "Radioactivity is nature's way of changing one material into another. In most stars, hydrogen atoms merge together into helium, producing a lot of radiation and giving the star its power. This is also the principal source of power in muggle hydrogen bombs. In the older so-called atomic or nuclear bombs, heavy atoms were split into lighter ones, giving off energy and a lot of radiation. Most of the immediate radiation in bombs and stars is in the form of gamma rays, which is an extremely powerful form of light, which is then absorbed by other materials, causing the other materials to become radioactive and eventually degrading to heat. In natural radioactivity, some particles are also given off. The vaults contain the particles, but as the gamma rays are absorbed by other materials, the heat that is generated is allowed to escape. "

"As to your second question, yes, radioactivity does affect my folk, although not the same degree as for magical humans. We can survive the same levels as non-magical humans, but just as with non-magicals we get very sick with radiation poisoning. If and when we recover if the dose is low enough, our magic is gone.

Hermione thought for a moment, and said to Harry, "You know, my grand-dads probably know a lot about this radiation stuff. They both studied stars in school, and I remembered Grampa Lafee (Mum's dad) telling me about working with a famous physicist named Fred Hoyle, who was figuring out how stars made the elements."

Harry nodded, and said "Hermione, I would love to meet all your family. You have never mentioned them before, and as my family was all killed, I just assumed they were all dead too, and you didn't want to raise a sad topic. I would very much like to know what is going to be my new family. Thank you. We have to do that soon."

He turned back to the goblin. "I have been told that radioactivity will destroy the magic of a magical human, and most likely kill them. If there, shall I call it, an intermediate dose, where would destroy the magic, but not physically harm the person otherwise?"

The goblin nodded thoughtfully. "This I do not know. What little I know of this branch of magic, the horror of the destruction of the person's magic came as so much of a surprise that I do not know if anyone looked into the phenomenon to that level of detail. I shall enquire of our research department. They may have to go back to the original records, and may have to restricted military files to find out – fortunately, we at Gringott's are the ones who hold those files.

Harry nodded. He looked at Hermione, who was starting to get a horrified look on her face as she wondered just what Harry was considering. Turning back to Farflenurg, Harry continued "Thank you. However, to the more immediate point, I have a hypothetical case. If I had some things in a vault, could I put something very hot and highly radioactive inside a vault (a non-Gringott's vault, in this hypothetical case) and arrange for Gringott's staff to put a ward on it so that the heat and radioactivity would not get out and harm people?"

The goblin nodded. "That would be possible, should you want to contain a radioactive item in a way that would not harm people." He immediately thought of the commercial possibilities as muggles had been looking for a way to safely dispose of radioactive waste in a safe manner, for a very long time. He added, "Harry, you have raised the possibility of a potentially profitable line of business. If it proves commercially viable, you would be receiving the standard ten percent inventor's or finder's fee. I will contact you through Grippinghand, should this work out. Is this arrangement acceptable?"

Harry smiled. "Farflenurg, it is acceptable. Thank you." With the goblins, everything was seen from a financial point-of-view, first, last and always.

Harry continued, "Now, if someone had something in a vault (a non-Gringott's vault, you understand), could I put something inside the vault that was highly radioactive, with goblin wards on the vault so that they could approach the vault safely, but not open it or have safe access to the contents. I wouldn't want to be accused of being a thief. I would also post warnings around the affected vaults warning of the consequences of opening the vaults."

Farflenurg smiled "I gather that the things in the vault are things that would be illegal or very harmful to the general public, and that their removal from accessibility would serve the public good?"

Harry said, "Well, I can't guarantee that all of the things would be strictly illegal, as there may be things like money or other valuables. However, I would say that they would be the proceeds of criminal activities, or the products of illegal or immoral actions. And I can't say that the actions would necessarily benefit the general public, but they would certainly hamper some less than honourable members of society."

Farflenurg nodded. "I believe I understand what you are trying to accomplish. To, as you humans and those goblins who play poker say, lay our cards on the table, there are some members of wizarding society who are conducting disreputable businesses and activities, such as smuggling dark artefacts, or other such things, to the harm of society in general and some of your friends and family in particular. You wish to effectively destroy the materials, but in such a way that the people themselves are not harmed directly, unless they do not accept your warnings and attempt to access the materials, in which case they would die, or be very sick, and in any case would lose their magic. Have I got that correct?"

Harry nodded, and Farflenurg nodded as well. The goblin said "Agreed. There are many of your human families who either were Death Eaters or supported them, who are again following their old ways. They are using their money in ways that speak of a pure-blood agenda, which relegated many of your people and certainly your close associates, and also folks such as mine, to subservience, or death. My superiors, and I personally, find this unacceptable. We will assist you."

"They need to have their ways corrected. It would seem that they need to be persuaded, perhaps not in exactly the manner that you persuaded their Lord Voldemort to desist in his efforts, but in an equally unmistakable manner. For some, we would even prefer the Voldemort solution, but they are your people so that is your affair. We have kept track of funds which had been removed from Gringott's to prevent confiscation when their nefarious activities become known, and can advise you of the location of the 'hypothetical vaults'. We look forward to working with you on this unfortunately necessary project."

"Now, is there something else we can help you with today?" The goblin sounded like it was just business as usually, and not that he may have just signed some death warrants.

Harry thanked the Senior Strategic Advisor for his insight and his help, and asked to see Vault Attendant Griphook about taking out some cash for his immediate needs. Farflenurg said, "Perhaps, you would like to see Grippinghand about arranging for credit cards for yourself and Miss Granger, to allow for convenient access to your funds, in both wizarding and muggle forms of money, for use in both worlds. Would this be preferable?"

Harry nodded, and said "That sounds like a very good idea. Thank you for the suggestion. However, I would also like to visit my vault with my fiancée, to see if there are any old books or things that she might like me to arrange for her to have available." He wisely braced himself against the impact of an incoming hug.

A/N: Unfortunately, I cannot remember whose story suggested a re-evaluation of the relationship between the galleon and the British pound, to a rate of roughly 50 pounds to the galleon. I would give appropriate credit if I could just remember which story it was from – to the (sadly) un-remembered author, thank you. The principle was that the Tri-Wizard tournament winnings of one thousand galleons, at a rate of two pounds to a galleon, would be totally inadequate to fund the start-up of a business (Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes) involving inventory and the leasing of a building in the heart of London (one of the more expensive cities in the world), as well as operating capital until the sales start coming in. I find the argument compelling.


	10. Millie, Pansy and Ginny

**Millie, Pansy and Ginny **

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

**A/N: Warning for language and general nastiness**

Pansy Parkinson was holding a meeting in her offices with contacts in the UK Ministry of Magic, and representatives of some European auror forces. Also in attendance were Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

Pansy introduced Harry and Hermione to her contacts, which included Georg-Fredirik von Drakenstein of the Action Group of the German Magical Police (Zauberpolizei, also known as the Zapos), Poloma Freitas of Interaur (the magical branch of Interpol) and Etienne Delacour of the French Gendarmerie.

Hands were shaken all around. Harry asked to be just called 'Harry, after Kolonel von Drakenstein addressed him as 'Herr Potter'. The German smiled and said, "well, in that case, I am George." Ms Freitas said "Just call me 'Pomme Frites', everybody does."

Capitan Delacour looked a bit familiar to Hermione, although they had never met before. The Frenchman saw her look of recognition, and smiled. "I see that you find I look like my Uncle Michel, father of a couple of young blondes of your acquaintance. The General and my father Andre were often taken as twins, although mon pere is four years younger than mon oncle."

Hermione asked "You called him 'The General'. I thought he was in the foreign service as a minor bureaucrat."

Etienne smiled, "You were allowed to know what the general public is allowed to know about my uncle. However, I have studied your dossier, and this room is secure. Oncle Michel is actually the head of our 'deuxieme bureau', our secret service. Now, having revealed a state secret, I am required by French law to shoot you, and arrest myself for treason." He smiled at Hermione's doubly surprised reaction, as he then took her by the arms and kissed her on both cheeks. "My cousin Fleur has spoken very highly of you. I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance myself."

Etienne then turned to Harry, and said, "My uncle has requested, or rather demanded, that I ask that you and Miss Granger meet with him and Tante Françoise for a discussion, at your convenience. It is a family matter of some personal importance, but not of immediate urgency. Harry looked at Hermione, who was also surprised by this request. They would have thought that any messages from the family would have come through Fleur, whose house at Shell Cottage was not far from Harry's place. They nodded to each other, and Harry turned to Etienne. He asked the Frenchman how Monsieur and Madame Delacour wished him to make contact, and that he would do so within the week.

Pansy mentioned that her team had tracked down the authors of some of the hate mail which Ginny had received, and that Hermione had gotten some in the same handwriting. Harry said, as the letters were from students at Hogwarts, he thought that a 'gentle' warning would suffice, and he was going to deal with it personally.

Kingsley Shacklebolt reported that the new detection charms, which Harry and Hermione had suggested, were now working, and set to detect all Unforgivable curses as well as any attacks on muggles. The aurors had already broken up several gangs of children of Death eaters, most of whom fell into the category of 'ordinary decent criminals', as they had been raised to believe that the work owed them a living, and had never bothered to find any lawful ways of making their own way in the world without 'daddy's' money. Daddy's money had now vanished, either to fund Voldemort's last campaign, or been confiscated by the Ministry when 'daddy' got caught. They were in custody, and being occupational therapy and training, hopefully to give them a way of making an 'honest' living.

Kolonel von Drakenstein reported that the Zapos had apprehended a number of 'purists' who had been smuggling dark artefacts and were closing in on the group who were producing wizarding porn, using Unforgivables and killing those 'actors' who were not pure-bloods.

Partway through the kolonel's report, an elf popped into the room. He was wearing the uniform of the Zapos, with officer's rank showing on his epaulettes. He snapped to attention and saluted the German officer, as he said "Mein Herr, ve have found her! Ve have Fraulein Bulstrode! Do you vish her brought here immediately, or shall we have our healers tend her first?."

Drakenstein looked at the assembly. "I think she should be treated first, then brought here. Pansy, you were her friend, no?"

Pansy shook her head. "No, George. I was her classmate, and dormitory companion, but never her friend. However, I am concerned for her welfare, and I was the one who asked for special action on her case. I will take responsibility for her, but only when she is ready to travel. Thank you."

The German turned to the elf. "Danke, Hans. Vielen danke. Bring Fraulein Bulstrode here when she is ready." The elf saluted with a slight bow of his head, and disappeared with a slight pop.

Four days later, Harry received a call from Pansy, asking if he could come over to her flat that evening. The witch said that she had already contacted Hermione, who had said she would be over after her shift at the hospital, around sevenish.

Harry agreed, and arrived to find that Pansy had arranged with the elves for food and drink. Sitting in Pansy's living room was Millicent Bulstrode. She was much thinner than when Harry had last seen her at Hogwarts before the battle, and had a number of rather obvious bruises around her face. When he went to greet her, she rose gingerly from her chair, in obvious pain.

Harry said hello, to which Millicent responded "Potter. I should have guessed. Are you going to kill me now too? You have your cops drag me out of my apartment and into a mental hospital, shoved needles and potions into me all over. They shove potions up my ass and down my throat, and take away my pipe and syringe. Now this. I get you. Harry fucking Potter! I gather you turned Pansy into a blood-traitor, and I gather I get the pleasure of having to put up with Granger's mudblood presence shortly too. Friggin' lovely."

Harry realized very quickly that, whatever reaction he expected Millicent to have on being freed from her abusers, this wasn't it.

Harry started to speak when the young witch cut him off. "Why did you bring me here, Potter? You figure that you've seen my films, and you want to get some of me too. Good old Millie, the ugly fat cow, the Saturday night screw for all of Slytherin house. You want to have all your fucking Gryffindors to have a shot at me too. Is that what you want? Well here, I'll make it easy for you!" She stripped off her clothes, revealing bruises all over her body, as she flopped down on the floor and spread her legs. "See, Potter! Is this what you want? Well, is it? You want your mudblood girlfriend and this piece of traitorous tail to have a go at me too? I've done girls too! I've done just about anything and anybody – elves, dogs, broomsticks, groups of up to five, whatever! Good old Millie, she's good for any combination. Come on Potter! Go ahead. Do whatever it is your sick mind wants to do!" Her voice was starting to break as she started to convulse in racking sobs as the tears flowed. Harry really couldn't tell if it was from the situation, or her pain.

Harry wasn't sure what to say. He started to say "Miss Bulstrode..", when the woman interrupted him.

"_Miss_ Bulstrode! _Miss?_ Potter, I haven't missed much for a long time! Miss? Hah! Just because you wrap a piece of shit in a pretty package, it's still a piece of shit! What's the matter Potter? You're not 'man' enough to do over poor little fat Millie?"

"Potter. Fucking flavour-of-the-month Potter. He has all the professors looking out for him, he inherits all the money in the world so he can look down on poor Millie. He has big-ass Dumble-shorts kissing his ass. Big man. He has everything he wants, and now he seems to want _me_, but can't get it up now he sees what he's got in front of him."

"Hey Potter, how about you pull out you big wand and do me. Or kill me. Flash the green light at me. I really don't give a shit!"

With this Millicent rolled on her side, racked with tears, and wincing from pain. She whimpered "Potter. You took everything from me. You destroyed everything I had. It wasn't much, but you did it anyway. You should have killed me like you killed everyone else. You like to kill, Potter. Does it give you a hard-on, Potter, to kill? It did for Crabbe. He would find cats, or mice, and he would kill them. He would stomp on their heads, the fat bastard, and this would get him going. Then he would come over and 'party' with me. How about you Potter? How about you kill Parkinson? Or rape her, then kill her. How about that Potter? She's like that, particularly the rape part. I saw her with Draco. And I saw you. You get off on killing! I saw you at the battle. You were looking forward to killing all the important people. You were just a piece of trash they were going to squash like the bug you are, but you bastard, you killed them first. "

Hermione had entered the room during the rant, and was horrified at the sight of the naked Millicent Bulstrode writhing on the floor, shouting out whatever obscenities she could think of. She was also horrified as she saw Harry's anger building, at Millicent's accusations of how much he enjoyed killing.

Finally he had his limit. He started yelling at her that he hated killing and that the only reason he killed was to save people from Voldemort and his Death eaters, who had been trying to kill him for years, and she had been one of them.

After a couple minutes of this, Pansy calmly walked up to Harry, grabbed him by the shirt front and slammed him up against the wall. In stunned surprise, Harry looked down at the short brunette witch and saw something he had never before seen in Pansy's eyes. Righteous fury!

She took a deep breath, then a second, then with a restraint that was evident, said "Harry, would you please get your head out of your ass? You're not the only one who was abused around here! For God's sake, Harry, I told you how things worked in Slytherin. Girls were sex toys for the older boys. Slytherin worked on power, and to a teenage boy, power means sex and lots of it."

"After the welcoming feast our first day at Hogwarts, the senior boys 'welcomed' us all in their own special way. As my father had ordered, I cuddled up to Malfoy really fast, and Mr 'Daddy's a Death Eater so she's my property' kept me relatively safe. Millie didn't have that luxury. She learned that to get along, you go along, with the sex, with the racism and with the politics. Third and fourth year, she went through four abortions, none voluntary, and miscarried twice. None of her pregnancies were voluntary either."

"Harry, why do you think Slytherins had such contempt for the teachers at Hogwarts? Snape was a Death Eateror himself, or so we all thought, so we thought the way he ran his house was the way of the future under Voldemort. But the rest of them, they knew. They had to have known. Pomfrey had to treat the girls who got injured or pregnant – she had to know and should have passed this on. Even old Haggis-breath had to know what was going on when girls came into class in obvious pain. The boys had contempt for the teachers because they knew they were getting away with things that their parents said they could, and the girls hated them because the teachers had to have known, and did nothing to stop it! I can understand that Mumbles wanted to keep Snape in Voldie's good books, but _we _were the price he paid for it!

"All her life, she has been told she's fat, and she's ugly, and she's only good for one thing! In the battle at Hogwarts where you killed Voldemort, most of her connections got killed. She had alienated just about everyone who knew her. I figured out ways to get out of the mess. She didn't! She went to doing the only thing that people told her she was good at, and she went downhill from there. The people she met treated her like meat, just like most of the people she had met before. There were the drugs, and there were the parties, and there was some money."

"Harry, you are standing here because you won! You! Won! She didn't!"

"You learned to shake off the Imperious. She never did. You saw the films, and the pictures. There was stuff even she wouldn't do, so they made her do that anyway! Good lord, Harry, it would have been kinder to her if you _had_ killed her!"

Harry was almost in a rage himself, but Pansy's last compassionate statement stopped him in his tracks.

He looked down at his feet, and nodded, then started to cry for all the victims of Voldemort and his cronies. He had fought them, and he had even died temporarily, and it looked like he was never going to be able to leave it in the past. He nodded sadly, and went into the kitchen for a drink of water.

Pansy looked over to where Hermione was standing watching. She glanced over to where Millicent lay on the floor, either passed out or sobbing quietly.

Hermione shook her head, and said "Pansy, you know Harry's temper and his power. You took an awful risk there, girl."

Pansy nodded, and the thought of a pleasant evening when she and Hermione had watched some muggle comedies together, trying to get to know each other, crossed her mind. The short brunette smiled at the taller bushy-haired witch, said, "Well, if he had killed me, which I thought might be a distinct possibility, you could have put on my gravestone 'Here lies Pansy Baldrick'."

The light came on in Hermione's eyes, and the two said in chorus "I have a cunning plan!", and laughed quietly together. Harry and Millicent were both puzzled by the unexpected sound.

A week after Pansy took Millicent into her care, and mounted a 24-hour a day suicide watch on her old classmate, both her and Harry's (and several other) fireplaces flared green with Florrie's high pitch yell. "Bees! Now! Harpies!"

Pansy put out the emergency call for their action team.

Harry made a rapid floo call to Gwenogg Jones, asking where Ginny was, and letting her know that there was an urgent problem, and he would be arriving momentarily. A second later, he apparated into the Holyhead Harpies office, when Gwen just said "Locker room!", and the two ran down the hall.

As they entered the team's changing room (as it was a single gender team, they required only one locker room) they were met by the sight of Ginny Weasley, naked and spread-eagled on the floor, obviously under an Imperius curse. Standing around her, also naked, were five wizards, petrified. Standing around them were twenty three elves, all holding out their arms applying wand-less magical restraining charms, and all wearing black and yellow striped T-shirts. Standing to the side were three elves holding video cameras.

Harry looked at the team leader and demanded, "Their wands, please." The elf handed five wands to Harry, who held them up in front of the captured men, and broke each one in half. As the magic in each wand died, there was a flash of light and a sigh from each one.

As Gwen shouted "Finite Incantatem" to lift the curse from Ginny, and helped the younger witch to her feet while wrapping her naked body in a very large towel, Harry looked at the elves with the cameras, and asked "Did you get it all? Before she was seriously hurt?"

The elves nodded. Florrie said "Master Harry, when they came in, Miss Ginny was just coming out of the shower. The leader has been dating her for a couple weeks. She saw him and said she was surprised to see him, but if he wanted to see her naked, it was okay, and she dropped her towel. The other four dropped their disillusion charms and hit her with the curse. They made her lie down, and they took off their clothes. They said that they were going to have her there and then in all sorts of ways, and then take her to their studio and make some films. They were going to send copies to you and to her family, to show them and you what happened to blood-traitors when real wizards got hold of them. The leader said that, you had taken one of his, so he was taking one of yours, to show you that you weren't so high and mighty when you couldn't even protect your ex-girlfriend. You would see what she could do when she had a real wizard between her legs. That's when the 'bees' arrived and stunned them all."

Harry nodded, and looked at the supposed leader. "So you are the bunch who had Millicent Bulstrode?"

The wizard looked at Harry's cold green eyes and tried to nod. Harry ordered "Release his head."

The man started swearing at Harry telling him all the things his family would do to him when they found out the muggle lover had kidnapped him. Harry looked at him, and pulled out a small bottle of a potion. "Hold his head."

As the man struggled against his constraints, Harry poured a few drops of the liquid into his mouth. Harry said, "You have just been given Veritaserum. A special mix used by the international aurors. If you lie, you will die. It's that simple. If you tell the truth, you will live, at least long enough for your sentencing. I promise you I will not kill you, tonight. However, it is almost midnight, and I will not guarantee tomorrow. I will also not guarantee what my rather annoyed associates might do to your body before that." Several elves pulled out and displayed some serrated knives.

The man blanched.

Harry said "Release his head." The other man said "Yeah, we made movie with Bulstrode."

Harry asked "And you used the same spells on her?"

The man nodded, and said, "usually we didn't need to. The bitch was willing to do almost anything. But there is a good market for films of witches under the Imperious. Kind of like bondage shots. Control freaks, you know. Also, she didn't want to do some kinds of stuff, so we had to use a little encouragement for those."

Harry nodded. "Thank you. That's all we need."

He turned to the elves. "We have five. Groups of four to each. You know what to do and where."

The five men blanched. Three started urinating on themselves, and one lost control of his bowels in fear.

Harry looked at them with utter contempt, and said "Don't worry, they won't kill you. You will just wish they had." He nodded to the elves. A group of four elves took a hold of each of the other wizards, and disappeared.

Ginny Weasley looked at Harry, and the post-curse shakes hit her. As she shook, she said "Harry, what are you going to do with them? Are you going to kill them?"

Harry shook his head. "No, Ginny, sadly not. I promised Hermione's parents I would not kill unless it was to protect others from immediate harm. I am sending them to some places where they may wish I had killed them."

"After a couple of days, my teams will turn them over to the aurors for trial. The videos of what they were trying to do to you and their admissions will serve as evidence. I expect that they will all be executed for using the Imperius."

"Our information says they are all from high-born pure-blood families, who will try to get them off, by threats, bribery or whatever. That won't go too well for them either, as the Ministry has changed their policies on crimes using Unforgivables, and also on trying to bribe Ministry officials – not like the old days. The fact that they were using an Imperius on pure-blood witches pretty much guarantees them going through the veil. But first, I have sent them to where they are likely going to learn about gang-rape first hand. They are not going to have the opportunity to do that to any more witches, and especially not to my little sister." With that, he kissed her on the forehead and disappeared.


	11. Attack of the Bees

**Attack of the Bees **

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

Avona Daneford woke up in her dorm room at Hogwarts. The third year Slytherin knew she had the world by the tail, as her family was now one of the most important old families, ever since that abomination Potter had killed the Dark Lord and perverted the natural course of the universe by corrupting the Ministry and making them arrest a lot of the Ancient and Noble family people, confiscating money that they had no right to have.

Her family had followed the Dark Lord's lead, although in order to remain out of the attention of the aurors and other misguided wizards, her father had been allowed to remain unmarked, and so he (and they) had survived the traitorous round-up after the so-called Battle of Hogwarts.

She was going to make sure she followed the old ways, as her family would want, and perhaps even bring Slytherin House back to its rightful prominence.

She reached over to her side table for her wand, and found a couple pieces of parchment, being held down by two pieces of wood which did not feel right. Where her wand should be, there were two sticks which had no magic in them at all.

She opened her eyes fully, to see the two sticks were what remained of her beautiful maple wand. Her scream of anger woke her roommates, who rushed over to her. Avona looked at them with what she felt was justified anger (they seemed content with the 'new order', and so were beneath contempt) and said "Okay, which one of you blood-traitorous bitches broke my wand. You will pay for this!"

Marjorie Greengrass looked at the parchments. "'Von, you had better look at these", and handed the parchments to the irate blonde.

Avona looked at two of the parchments and saw that they were just copies of the letters she had sent to the blood-traitor Weasley, and the uppity mudblood Granger. She discarded these for the worthless trash they were. Her roommates picked them up and read them, going ghostly pale as they did.

She read the longer piece of parchment, which had these words:

_Miss Daneford,_

_The two letters, which I have attached to this document, have been brought to my attention. They serve to demonstrate that the blood-purist agenda of the late and unlamented Tom Riddle is still active. Riddle, a half-blood who styled himself Lord Voldemort, succeeded in convincing many of the Ancient Families to follow him in his murderous quest for power and personal immortality._

_Riddle's program consisted of terror, murder and torture, not only of non-magical people, but all magical folk who did not accept his agenda. _

_Voldemort tried to kill me for most of my life, having murdered my parents when I was an infant. His followers and his agenda nearly destroyed our world. I will not let this happen again._

_I do not wish to presume that a girl of your age could come up with the hatred expressed in your letter, all by yourself, and therefore must conclude that you are following the teachings of your family. _

_This letter is to inform you that I had broken your wand, and the wands of the rest of your immediate family. You and your family are now under continuous surveillance by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, as well as my own security teams._

_Should you send any further letters of the kind my associates and friends have received, and I will be forced to take more direct action._

_Harry Potter_

_P.S. A copy of this letter, and the letters you sent to my friend, is sitting on the dining room table at your family's house, held down by the remains of their wands. This will be their only notice of my serious displeasure._

Avona through down the letter, which Marjorie picked up. While Avona ranted , the rest of the girls blanched. Emily Davis ran for the washroom and they could hear her retching.

Avona looked at her roommates in disgust. They seemed to think this letter was more than just the ravings of an egotistical fool who thought he ruled the world.

She laughed at her roommates, saying "So what's the big deal?"

Marjorie picked up the pieces of Avona's wand, and quietly asked "Von, do you know the meaning of a broken wand?"

Avona scoffed, "So my wand is broken. So what, I'll just get a new one. Daddy has some influence and will get me the best wand there is."

Emily came back from the lavatory. She said "In a full-scale serious duel, the winner kills the loser. Breaking the loser's wand means that the winner thinks that the loser is so pathetic that they don't deserve to have magic, and that _they are not even worth killing_. It is a statement of utter contempt."

The proud girl scoffed again. "So what if Potter wants to send me a signal that he doesn't think much of me. He is so full of himself. He'll learn who is really in charge."

Marjorie shook her head. "You stupid pathetic bitch. According to the bullshit propaganda your father sends you, Voldemort was supposed to be one of the three most powerful wizards that ever lived, and the treacherous Potter killed him by sneaking up on him. How the hell do you think, if Potter was so overrated like you claim, that he could sneak up on someone that powerful surrounded by all of his top Death Eaters? Tell me that!"

"My cousin Daphne was at the battle and saw it - Potter duelled with the Dark Lord publicly, one-on-one and Potter beat him! Potter killed the most powerful Dark Lord in the last five hundred years! That makes him even more powerful than the most powerful Dark Lords. And you have _seriously_ pissed him off!"

"I have heard rumours that he has a special intelligence network that nobody seems able to find out anything about. And he has just told you that not only the DMLE, but his special force, will be watching you and your family from now on.""

"Think about it, Avona Daneford! Since the Battle, the wards around Hogwarts have been increase tenfold from what they were before, and it was considered the safest place in the UK even then. The only way that Death Eaters got in was by the treachery of Draco Malfoy, who personally let them in. On top of that, boys are not supposed to be able to get into the girl's dorms under any conditions. The fact that this note was sitting on your night-table says that Potter got into Hogwarts, and into our room, without setting off any of the sirens and alarms."

"After the battle, the DMLE rounded up all of the marked Death Eaters and executed them. Any who were found to support Voldemort, but hadn't taken the Dark Mark, had their property confiscated. Voldemort's plan is over!"

"Avona, you just lost any companions you ever had. If you get hit by lightning, no-one is going to believe it was not Potter coming after you."

Marjorie looked at her roommate, and in a quiet voice said, "Avona, what were you wearing last night?"

Avona said, "My forest green silk Slytherin nightgown. Why?"

Marjorie said, "Look down."

Avona looked down at the blood-covered T-shirt and transparent knickers she was now wearing, instead of her long silk gown. The T-shirt bore the message 'Don't Stand Too Close'. As she screamed in anger and tore off the T-shirt, the other girls could see that a target pattern was neatly tattooed onto her bare chest.

She screamed, "He can't threaten me!" Marjorie and Emily looked at each other and said together, "Avona, he just did."

In the seventh year Slytherin dormitory, Andrew MacNair woke to find a letter on his night-table. As had been found in the third year girls' dorm, it was accompanied by copies of the threatening letters he had sent to Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Hermione Granger, and weighed down by the pieces of his broken wand.

The document he received stated:

_Mr MacNair,_

_I had the pleasure of helping end your uncle's life at the Battle of Hogwarts a couple of years ago. He was one of Voldemort's inner circle, who had been trying unsuccessfully to kill me for most of my life. You will note that he is not still here, but I am. He will not be missed._

_The letters you sent to my friends indicate to me that you are trying to follow in your uncle's footsteps, and follow the program of the late and unlamented Tom Riddle, a half-blood who convinced a lot of misguided pure-blood racists and bigots that he was the way to ultimate power. He was using them in a bid for personal power and immortality. I am afraid, as it affects your future comfort, that I was the one who proved to him that he was not immortal._

_You are almost ready to graduate from Hogwarts and head out into the world. You expected that your family's connections would aid you in your quest of a life of luxury, which you seem to believe is your right as the son of an Ancient and Noble House. You are mistaken._

_I have purchased the debts and mortgages on property your family has used as collateral for many of their operations. I have called these debts and now own most of what your family considered its own. You will have to make your way in the world by your own efforts. From my associates' review of your academic record, I would recommend you work on developing a very small appetite._

_You and your family are now under surveillance by the DMLE and my own security agency. This will last until we all are satisfied that you and the attitudes expressed in your letters do not constitute a public threat. Don't hold your breath._

_The leading wand suppliers in the United Kingdom have been advised by the DMLE that any wand sold for your use must be equipped with monitoring charms. Any misuse of such a new wand, such as the casting of Unforgivable curses, or the abuse of any creature whether sentient or not, will result in instant arrest._

_Harry Potter_

P.S._ A copy of this letter, and the letters you sent to my friend, is sitting on the dining room table at your family's house, held down by the remains of their wands. This will be their only notice of my serious displeasure._

_P.P.S. Your wardrobe has been charmed to refuse to accept clean laundry, and any clean laundry placed in it will immediately reacquire its soiled state. Get used to the smell._

On the breakfast tables of four of the oldest families in the British Wizarding world, there were pieces of parchment, held down by the pieces of a broken wand. In each case, the houses had been heavily warded against intrusion, but the parchments were there all the same. Each bore the message:

_Your son has been apprehended in the act of casting an Unforgivable curse on a pure-blood witch, apparently with the intent of rape, and there is recorded evidence that they had participated in, or been party to, similar casting of unforgivable curses, torture and murder. These crimes were committed against magical persons, both pure-blood and mixed, and non-magical persons as well._

_He and his associates are currently in the custody of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, awaiting trial for their capital crimes, which they freely admitted. They were under the impression that they had been given Veritaserum, but what had been administered was pure water._

_The DMLE had to take some time locating your son, as he was found naked and without his wand or any identification, in a location where his language was not commonly spoken. As your family philosophy maintains that it is a unseemly to have anything to do with the muggle world, when your son did manage to communicate their desire for contact with British authorities, the consulate could find no records of his existence, and so disregarded his claim, until an enquiry was received from the DMLE for information on certain missing persons. _

_Your son spent this time in a holding cell, as the local authorities assumed that the raving naked foreigner was drunk. Some of my staff were in attendance, and prevented any real harm being done, although your son was under the impression, on numerous occasions, that he was going to suffer the same ignoble and illegal, not to mention uncomfortable, treatment which he inflicted on women who were caught up in his illegal activities._

_In view that two of the women placed under the Imperius curse were acquaintances of mine, I have taken a personal interest in the case. Although some of the evidence indicates that your son and some of his associates believed in the superiority of pure-blood wizards and witches, I have found no evidence that their actions followed the agenda of the late Lord Voldemort. Therefore, I have not instituted a long-term surveillance of your family either by the DMLE or by my staff, nor have I broken the wands of other members of your family, as I have done for other families whose crimes did indicate such a political agenda._

_However, I must inform you that I had directed my financial staff to purchase the mortgage on your family residence, and you may have noticed the consequent increased value of your Gringott's deposits. Until my intensive investigations were completed and your family was cleared of the suspicion of collaboration with the purist agenda as promoted by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, I had thought to evict you, and break your family as I did the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself personally. Our findings show that your son is just a normal racist bigot, but without political implications._

_My apologies for this misunderstanding, and I am quite prepared to sell you back your mortgage, so that you can return to your previous indebted state. However, in the interim, being muggle-raised and comfortable with muggle technology, I had my elves wire the house to the current electrical code._

_As you know, during the period that Lord Voldemort's cronies were in charge of the Ministry, several new laws were passed. One of these affects your family, as it forbids any Ancient and Noble House from having any muggle artefacts or technology in their possession, except where they were acquired as what they called 'spoils of war'. Any House found to have such artefacts in their residences would be stripped of their rank, their hereditary seats in the Wizengamot, all assets, and their standing as an Ancient and Noble House. In effect, the entire family would be disinherited and their assets seized by the Death Eater controlled Ministry. The new wire, which is warded to prevent fires or other harm including removal, qualifies as such muggle artefacts._

_It is my desire to get these laws overturned and the influence of the Voldemort years stricken from our society. As there are many older families who resist any reduction in the rights of pure-bloods, who generally hate me and anything I might propose for the betterment of our world, and are currently suspected of collaboration with the Dark Lord during his reign of terror, I will require your assistance to strike these laws. Once done, you will be free to resume ownership of your family home, without the threat of confiscation – the new wiring, I donate to you gratis._

_Again, my apologies for my initial over-reactions._

_Harry Potter_

On the breakfast table in a fifth house was a parchment, held down by the pieces of several broken wands. The house had been heavily warded against intrusion, with the best wards and spells that the Death Eaters could cast, but the parchment was there all the same. It bore the message:

_Lord and Lady Fingle-Bury_

_Your son has been apprehended in the act of casting an Unforgivable curse on a pure-blood witch, apparently with the intent of rape, and there is recorded evidence that he and his associates had participated in, or been party to, similar casting of unforgivable curses, torture and murder. These crimes were committed against magical persons, both pure-blood and mixed, and non-magical persons as well._

_He and his associates are currently in the custody of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, awaiting trial for their capital crimes, which they freely admitted. They were under the impression that they had been given Veritaserum, but what had been administered was pure water._

_The DMLE had to take some time locating your son, as he was found naked and without his wand or any identification, in a location where his language was not commonly spoken. As your family philosophy maintains that it is a unseemly to have anything to do with the muggle world, when your son did manage to communicate their desire for contact with British authorities, the consulate could find no records of his existence, and so disregarded his claim, until an inquiry was received from the DMLE for information on certain missing persons. _

_Your son spent this time in a holding cell, as the local authorities assumed that the raving naked foreigner was drunk. Some of my staff were in attendance, and prevented any real harm being done, although your son was under the impression, on numerous occasions, that he was going to suffer the same ignoble and illegal, not to mention uncomfortable, treatment which he inflicted on women who were caught up in his illegal activities._

_In view that two of the women placed under the Imperius curse were acquaintances of mine, I have taken a personal interest in the case. The evidence indicates that your son and his associates believed in the superiority of pure-blood wizards and witches, and the evidence also clearly shows that his own actions followed the agenda of the late Lord Voldemort. Further investigations by the DMLE and my own staff have clearly shown that your family also contributed financially to the support of the Death Eaters and Voldemort's program of racial purity. Charges of crimes against the wizarding society are pending._

_Further, I have recommended that the DMLE maintain a long-term surveillance of your family, and I have ordered similar surveillance by my staff. I broken the wands of all members of your immediate family, as I have done for other families whose crimes did indicate such a political agenda._

_However, I must inform you that I directed my financial staff to purchase the mortgage on your family residence, and the funds have been put against other debts. I have also purchased many of your family's debts from the holders of those loans, who were very glad have finally received overdue payment. Therefore, you will not have noticed any increased value of your Gringott's deposits. _

_I had my elves wire the house to the current electrical code, as I, being muggle-raised, am very comfortable with muggle technology. However, I have examined your house and decided that I do not like it. I therefore intend to return it to your ownership, for the price of one hundred galleons. These funds will be subtracted from the payment of your debt to a company I now own, so you will owe the moneys to the original holder, but you will regain ownership of the house. I have not yet put this intent into action, for reasons I will explain._

_However, I will retain ownership of the contents of your wine cellar and of your house elves, in lieu of the outstanding value of your house for which I will not demand compensation._

_While I was examining your__ (well, formerly your)__ house for occupancy, I had delivered to your pantry and cellars sufficient provisions for a large family. I also had delivered the best food-processors and kitchen equipment money can buy, as I like to cook and want the best tools for the tasks. As I doubt that you are familiar with the preparation of food, or even the location of your pantry, I will have one of your former house elves check on your condition in a week or so. If you need it, I will have her or him prepare a meal for you. I would not want you to starve._

_As you know, during the period that Lord Voldemort's cronies were in charge of the Ministry, several new laws were passed. One of these (Ministry Statute 1996-7423) affects your family, as it forbids any Ancient and Noble House from having any muggle artefacts or technology in their possession, except where they were acquired as what they called 'spoils of war'. Any House found to have such artefacts in their residences would be stripped of their rank, their hereditary seats in the Wizengamot, all assets, and their standing as an Ancient and Noble House. In effect, the entire family would be disinherited and their assets seized by the Ministry. The new wire, which is warded to prevent fires or other harm including removal, qualifies as such muggle artefacts._

_It is my desire to get these laws overturned and the influence of the Voldemort years stricken from our society. As yours is one of many older families who resist any reduction in the rights of pure-bloods, who generally hate me and anything I might propose for the betterment of our world, I expect you will oppose the repeal of these laws. _

_If you do so, I will insist on the application of Statute 1996-7423, and you will lose everything. If you will assist me, you will regain ownership of your house, and maintain your standing as an Ancient and Noble House. Your choice. I must remind that this is not a choice your Lord Voldemort would have given you if he suspected you were standing in his way._

_Harry Potter_

On the first Saturday in July, Hermione and Harry travelled to a chateau in the south of France to meet with Fleur's parents. When they arrived and greeted the elder Delacours, they were re-introduced to Fleur younger sister Gabrielle, and her younger sisters Angeline (15 years old), Marielle (11 years) and Roxanne (9), all of whom they had met at Fleur's wedding.

Gabriele, who was now an adult witch of eighteen, was now also a ravishing blonde beauty. Being Veelas, she and her younger sisters were all beautiful blondes, but Gabrielle even outshone her mother and older sister.

Harry and Hermione were surprised, as they had thought Gabrielle had been younger than eleven when she and Fleur came to Hogwarts for the tournament. Madame Delacour explained that Gabrielle had been in her first year at Beauxbatons, which is why she was allowed along on the trip, and that for Veela, the 'blessings and curses of womanhood' came on suddenly at the age of thirteen

Harry noticed Hermione was a bit on edge, and thought that he must talk to her about it later. He suspected that it was her long-standing insecurity that every other woman was more attractive than she, and as much as he (and Ron before him) had tried to reassure her of their appreciation of her as a beautiful woman, she still felt uncomfortable among other women. She had come to terms with Fleur, but even there Hermione had nerves when they were in a situation where Fleur let loose with the Veela allure, or where they were dressed in their finery, or dressed only in swimwear.

As the day was quite hot, Monsieur Delacour suggested a swim before having their talk. When all the women, including Hermione and Mrs Delcaour, appeared at the pool clad only in the bottom half of bikinis, Harry's paranoia suggested that there might be an ulterior motive to the swim. However, Michel sat beside Harry at the side of the pool looking at the ladies, and sighed, "Ah, some days, it is good to be a man, is it not."

After the swim and a light lunch, the elder and younger couples sat on the terrace, sipping wine mixed with cold soda water to lighten the impact and cool the throat.

Hermione complimented the Delacours on their house and lands, which held a large vineyard and a small forest. They chatted briefly about Harry's farm and house, and his castle in the Highlands, and compared the elegance of Beauxbatons school with the austerity of Hogwarts.

After discussing the inconsequential for an hour or so, the purpose of the meeting came up for review. The Delacours had a problem, or rather Mademoiselle Gabrielle Madeleine Delacour had a problem.

As Françoise Delacour explained, Veelas only produced daughters, so there were no half-Veelas. Therefore, any Veela wishing to have children had to marry a human male. All Veelas were fully magical, so there were no Veela 'squibs'.

She reminded Harry and Hermione that in magic, words had power, and the intent was a major part of any spell. Harry remembered how he could not cast an effective Cruciatus curse, because he could not put enough hate into it. Although this had been a problem at the time in the middle of the fight, later Harry had found some pride in the fact he could not cast the Unforgivable Curse.

Then she came to the crux of the matter. During the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Harry had saved Gabrielle from the lake. In doing some, Gabrielle became bound by a life-debt to Harry. Although it became apparent later that none of the 'hostages' were in real danger, as all would have been retrieved by the tournament organizers, Harry had not known this. The fact that he had gone out of his way to 'rescue' Gabrielle was the 'intent' part of the magic, and had sealed the spell of the life-debt.

Hermione, with a nervousness that caused Harry to worry that there was something more to this, asked, "How many women are under a life-debt to Harry? Is there any way of knowing that? I mean, in the war, he saved a lot of girls at Hogwarts by killing Voldemort."

Michel asked her "Do you know about the 'concept of 'karma'?"

Having roomed with Parvati Patel for several years, Hermione nodded, but Harry shook his head, so Michel explained, "The mainly eastern religious concept of karma is that all actions have consequences, either in this life or the next, good and bad. Most eastern religions believe that we are reincarnated over and over, so the debts and credits from one life carry over into the next. I have heard it summed up that 'Karma means never getting away with anything'."

"Harry's actions of saving people generated a lot of good karma. If you believe it, his next life should be very good. For a Christian like myself, I believe that his credit will stand well in heaven."

"Franni and I have looked at the records, when it became apparent that Gabi had a life-debt to Harry. There are only three women with life-debts to Harry, and two are with us. Hermione, you are one and Ginny Weasley is the other."

Hermione asked (because she knew Harry would not), "But what about Ron and Arthur Weasley? Ron got poisoned, and Arthur got attacked by the Voldemort's snake. Harry's actions saved them too."

Françoise nodded. She said, "That generated a lot of good karma, but not a life-debt. To create a life-debt, the person has to, by a voluntary personal choice, save the life of someone, but it must be _at the risk of their own life_, as it was for your and the troll, Ginny and the Book, and Gabi and the merfolk (or so Harry thought at the time). For Arthur and Ron, Harry was not himself in jeopardy. In a similar way, the girls he saved during the war were sort of anonymous – it was not a personally specific action, so no life-debt. Ma chère, you need not worry about thousands of girls coming after your Harry."

Hermione then asked, "Where did you look all of this up? Who keeps such records?"

Michel laughed. "This, you will not likely believe. There is a very old wizard, about the oldest, or maybe it is his son or grandson. I did not ask. Anyway, the original man keeping the records had been a bishop in Turkey early in the Christian era. He was a very good man, and was recognised as a saint. Nowadays, he is called 'Père Noël' in France, or Father Christmas or Santa Claus in English speaking countries."

At Hermione's gasp, he added with a broad smile, "The book of karma is how he keeps track of who is 'naughty and nice'."

"Now", Françoise said, "here is the problem. A Veela under a life-debt to a man cannot have children by any other man. If Gabrielle is to have children, and all will be daughters, she must have them with Harry, or not at all. Now, this does not mean that Gabi could not marry and have a happy life. But to be Veela is to be a creature of love, and to be fulfilled as a Veela, we must have children. So Gabi could have a reasonably happy life, but not a full life.

"Harry and Hermione, we do not wish to cause either of you undue pressure. We know that Harry, by law, can have many wives. For Gabrielle's sake, please consider her as a possibility."

Harry sat there stunned. His hostess had just handed him her daughter in marriage, at his discretion. He looked at Hermione, who looked equally stunned, but even more distressed than before.

He turned to Michel and Francoise and asked, "May I think about it, please? This is somewhat of a surprise, as you can understand. I also need to discuss it with Hermione. I promised her and her parents that I would not make any such arrangements without their approval. Anyone I marry must meet her parents, and the lady must be someone they can respect. It may sound silly sitting here, but that is the promise I made to them in order to them to grant me permission to marry Hermione, and I intend to live by it."

Michel looked at Harry, and nodded. "Harry, you have all the time you need. We have spoken of this with Gabrielle, and she has told us that, in her opinion, the man who freed her and saved our world from Voldemort is the only man she will marry. She said she would prefer that you accept her, but recognises that there may be impediments. If and when you agree to accept her, however long that may be, she will be available."

Harry smiled with a bit of a grimace, "And you say you do not want to give undue pressure. I would hate to see it when you do."

Michel smiled. "Harry, you are correct. You know what I do for work. You _would_ hate it if I decided to apply pressure."

As Harry and Hermione returned home, Harry escorted Hermione back to her flat in London, before heading back to his house. He attempted to reassure her that he loved her, and that in his eyes, she was the most beautiful person on earth

At her door, Harry noticed Hermione take a deep breath and straighten her back. Until then, he had not noticed that she was stooping, as if the weight of the world was on her.

Hermione turned to face her fiancé. "She started to cry, and said "Harry, it's not that Gabrielle is knock-dead gorgeous. She is, yes, but that's not it."

"Harry, just how many women am I going to have to share your bed with? My whole upbringing says it's wrong! It's wrong to hold slaves, and it's wrong to take advantage of women like that."

"I talked with Ginny about what you did to those men. You gave the man a controlled substance, illegally, and sent them off to be abused. Ginny said you had a cold hatred in your eyes. What kind of a monster are you turning into? What kind of a monster am I turning into, if I go along with this?"

"Harry, you have made me part of this plan, and you wouldn't tell me exactly what you are planning really. I can't be responsible for something I have no control over. If I do, then I'm on the way to being the next Dark Lady. I can't let that happen. "

She slipped the ring off her finger and handed to him. "I'm sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry, but I can't marry a man like that. Goodbye."


	12. The Hitchcock Effect

**The Hitchcock Effect**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

The next morning, Harry showed up at Pansy's office. She took one look at him as he shuffled into the room, and called on of the elves to get a sleeping potion, as it didn't look like Harry had slept in weeks.

Harry looked at her with bloodshot eyes, and shook his head. He opened his hand, and she saw the ring he had been clutching for hours. His tightly closed fist had push the ring into the flesh so it had cut into his palm and his hand was bleeding freely.

She looked at the elf, who was standing there in shock. His leader and master was sitting there crying. She said "Make it brandy instead."

She brought a chair over to face Harry and asked "What happened?"

Harry told her of Gabrielle's life-debt, and Hermione's reaction to that. He told her of Hermione's reaction to Ginny's account of the capture of the rapists. He told her that he had sent Hermione a letter pointing out that he had given the man only water, telling him it was potion, and letting the man's guilt speak. He had made arrangements that no actual harm would come to the men, although they would perceive the threat as real. The letter had been returned unopened.

She handed him a glass, which he drank straight down, and suddenly turned to houseplant in the corner, anointing it with what little breakfast he had eaten, as well as the full glass of brandy. He moved over to lie on her office couch, mumbling "What else do I have to lose?" As he cried himself to sleep, Pansy gathered a blanket from the closet, and spread it over her boss.

She wrote a quick note to Hermione, asking to meet her that evening. She wrote that she needed to know that Hermione's analytical talents were still part of the organization, and she didn't want to lose their working relationship. She sent off the owl, thinking this was not in her plans at all. This would not do!

In the late afternoon, Harry woke up on Pansy's couch. For a moment, he could not figure out where he was. As he listened to the hustle-bustle of the office, things became clear, and he started to cry again. After some time, he slept again. When he reawoke, he looked at his clothes, and smelled his breath, and decided home was a better place to be, where he could look and smell like a dog's breakfast with impunity.

He left a note on Pansy's desk, and apparated to his own lonely bedroom, to cry himself to sleep once again.

When Harry awoke, in the dark of the night and the dark of his mind, he thought 'If I'm a supposed to be a monster, I'll let them think I am a monster. This can work.'

He set up a meeting with Farfelnurg at Gringott's, who confirmed that the radiation –proof wards worked, and he looked forward to a profitable partnership with Harry. Harry then explained his plans, to which the goblin agreed with a level of glee Harry had not seen in one of his race. The goblin also had some results of the studies they had discussed, which were not encouraging.

Harry then set up another meeting, this one with Luna Lovegood Arthur and George Weasley, Pansy and her team leaders, the elf Moishe Cohen, and Kingsley Shacklebolt. All were delighted with the plan, and Harry arranged to proceed in the immediate future.

The next morning, the remaining staff at the pornography factory where Millicent Bulstrode had 'worked' arrived to find the news of their bosses' arrests plastered on copies of the Daily Prophet set on each desk. Whoever had delivered the newspaper had penetrated the protective wards on the office. They then noticed a piece of parchment stuck to the outside of the large vault which contained all of the firm's money, but also the master copies of all the videos and books which were their products and their major assets. The staff had heard rumours of the disappearances (and re-appearances and arrest) of the five shareholders in the company, and had looked forward to making free with the company's goods, in an effort to maximize their own finances before the aurors descended on the place.

The parchment advised that an item of extreme heat and radioactivity had been placed in the vault temporarily. This item had been removed, but it was likely that the goods in the vault had been made radioactive which would have destroyed their magical properties, had been incinerated, or had melted. The vault was now equipped with the latest in anti-radiation wards, so there would be no danger being near it, but it would not be advisable to open in without seeking assistance from the vault staff at Gringott's who were now undergoing training in these new wards. The parchment was signed by Harry Potter.

The staff, realizing that the vault held several thousand galleons as well as the video masters, were rather eager to get at the contents. One wizard, whose family had contempt for Potter and all he stood for, went up to the vault, and opened it – he screamed as the wave of heat burned his face, and a stream of molten gold and silver pour from the bottom of the vault onto the floor, scorching the surface. The wizard fell to the floor in convulsions.

Word rapidly spread throughout the wizarding underworld about Harry Potter putting radioactive things in their vaults, and about the new wards that could keep them safe, but prevented them from getting at the stuff inside the vaults. Some decided to test this as they felt Potter could never get away with this kind of treatment of wizards. When another criminal group's vaults were marked with a similar parchment, indicating that a radioactive time had been placed in their vault, they called on the local branch of Gringott's to use their wards and extract the item. The goblins readily agreed, as business was business. The vault was opened surrounded by the best wards the goblins could conjure, and the small radioactive source was removed, and very carefully put into a warded briefcase for disposable (by the goblins) in a secure location. The criminals again had access to their money, but no-one would accept it, as word had gotten around that it had been tainted by this new and unknown curse.

Soon Gringott's was having trouble coping with the demands for the new wards. Farflenurg called Harry to a meeting to let him know about the success of their enterprise, and return Harry's old wristwatch with the luminous dial. Never before had Harry seen a goblin convulsed in laughter.

On November 1st, the Quibbler published a long story (written by L. Lovegood) about the gathering on the Salisbury Plains the previous day and evening (Hallowe'en). This was said to be the annual meeting and picnic for the important wizarding families. It was reported that during the festivities, which were attended by many members of old families, there was a very bright flash in the sky directly above the gathering. In the middle of the gathering Harry Potter has stood up and announced that he had been responsible for the explosion in the upper atmosphere which gave off a significant amount of what he called 'radiation'.

According to the article, Potter then announced that he had learned that radioactivity had been found to be extremely dangerous to magical people, although muggles used it regularly in their medical therapies. This was known to healers, but in Great Britain, this information had been declared a State Secret, and yes, the Ministry had been keeping this information from them. In countries where muggles and magicals mixed freely, this was commonly known and taught in all medical schools.

Harry said that he had arranged with Gringott's to erect wards over the gathering so that no lethal levels of radioactivity would have been received. He said that his presence at the gathering was a personal commitment that whatever risks the magical world would experience, he would share, as they were his people and his society. He said that he had been forced in his youth to defend the wizarding world from Voldemort and his policies, and now as an adult and Head of two Ancient families, he would continue this work until all traces of Voldemort's murderous pure-blood agenda were erased.

The Quibbler article concluded with the note that all through his life, Harry had been attacked by pure-bloods under Voldemort's direction, and he always had put himself at the forefront of the battles. Contrary by rumours being spread by some factions, Harry had always taken on more risks than he allowed his followers and associates. The author concluded that she hoped that whatever witch managed to marry Harry, she hoped that the woman would be generous enough to share.

The next day, the Daily Prophet published an article by its 'star investigative reporter', Rita Skeeter, claiming that she had in attendance at the gathering, but had been delayed in getting her article into the paper due to print deadlines, and time required to check with reputable authorities.

She reported that Harry Potter, the self-styled saviour of the wizarding world, had appeared and tried to impress the gathering of the most important wizarding families with his outrageous claims. Some of the old families were said to claim that Harry seemed to be trying to regain the attention which he had had during school and before his quidditch career went down in failure after the star seeker of the Holyhead Harpies had thrown him over.

She reported that she had spoken to a representative of Gringott's about the new wards that Harry claimed they had used. The goblin she met with, who said his name was Snoadjob, and informed her that the wards did exist, and that they were a new item, developed with the assistance of Harry Potter and his employees. This meant, of course, that this staged event was just Potter trying to drum up business for his company, and had nothing to do with the betterment of society.

As to the blast itself, she had spoken with a representative of the Ministry's Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Miss Hooey had confirmed that there had been an unexplained flash of light over the Salisbury Plains near Stonehenge. The reporter stated that she was on intimate terms with the representative, due to her longstanding career in investigative journalism, and that Lotta had also confirmed that the aurors were giving the event their highest priority.

Skeeter had also interviewed several high ranking wizards and witches, all of whom claimed to have been in attendance, but had not heard or seen Potter's self-serving declaration.

She had also tried to interview both of Harry's ex-fiancées. Hermione Granger, who was studying to be a Healer, said she couldn't talk about it, obviously disgusted with Potter's histrionic displays. Ginny Weasley has refused to be interviewed, as she and the rest of the Harpies were preparing for a critical and potentially difficult match against the Chudley Cannons, who Skeeter understood were the leading team in the English Quidditch league

The reporter also stated that, although her own security clearance allowed her access to such state secrets, she had sought out an interview with an American Healer, who was from a small town called Dullsville, in the state of Taxes. Being American, he might know more about this 'Rodeo-activity', and not be bound by the British rules. Healer Samuel Austen had confirmed that rodeo-activity was indeed very dangerous, and it was not uncommon for people working in that field to suffer broken bones and concussions.

Most of the readers of the Prophet were familiar with Skeeter's work and took it for what it was, a vain attempt to look like she had not been scooped on the biggest story of the season.

Many high-born and self-important wizards were left wondering why they had not been invited to the gathering.

Shortly after the 'event', Harry met with Farflenurg and Grippinghand to discuss the distribution of the proceeds from the radiation wards. Farflenurg gestured to an assistant, who placed an ornately carved glass bottle on the table. He poured glasses for himself, Grippinghand and Harry, then looking over at the assistants, gestured to them to join the celebration, and poured glasses for them as well. He held up his glass in a toast and said, "Harry, you have provided me with cause to have a good laugh twice in one year. That hasn't happened in nearly two centuries. Thank you."

Over the next couple years, a number of vaults, which held assets removed from Gringott's vaults, were found to have a piece of parchment attached to them. None of these parchments had any writing on them, but the contents of the vaults might just as well have ceased to exist.

After several months of what Harry called his 'Reign of Error', about eighty percent of the wealth that had been hidden away in vaults not under Gringott's control had been rendered inaccessible, and the purist cause was becoming desperately short of funds. Patronage connections were falling apart, and the 'hired muscle' started seeking other, more lucrative employment.

Some families quietly admitted defeat, and asked the goblins to assist in the recovery and decontamination of their hidden money (with the proviso that they would return the funds into Gringott's care, and the magical and unbreakable oath that they would refrain from suspect political activities). The goblins opened the suspect vaults, removed the galleons, sickles and knuts, literally laundered the money by rinsing them in clear water, after mumbling some incoherent (and completely meaningless) incantations, casting drying spells, and returning the funds to their thankful owners. The brief exposure to Harry's wristwatch, or to the presence of a blank sheet of parchment on the outside of the vault, had apparently done the money no lasting harm.

A/N: Making some moderate assumptions, 10 thousand galleons (at an exchange rate of 50 GBP to the galleon) would require about 20 kg of gold. Assuming a vault of 2 cubic metres in volume, 5 microlitres of stellar core material from our Sun (if allowed to reach thermal equilibrium, but be contained from expanding by compressive wards) would heat the interior of the vault, including the air, gold and other contents, to above 10,000 °C. This would be enough to incinerate any combustible materials (such as master porn tapes) and vapourize any gold and silver. I have assumed that the core material was removed before reaching equilibrium, but after it had been sufficiently effective. Sorry about this – just yielding to my inner nerd.


	13. Action of Another Kind

**Action of Another Sort**

**Disclaimer:** I have not claim to characters or scenes from the Harry Potter series, which belongs to JK Rowling and associates. I get nothing from this except the enjoyment of imagining and writing the story. If I did own any of the Potterverse, I could stop having to work for a living.

**Time frame** – Post–DH except for the epilogue which I am ignoring, for reasons that should become obvious.

**A/N**: A year and a half after the previous chapter

Harry Potter rose in the Chambers of the Wizengamot, and proposed the repeal of several laws which enforced the inequality between the magical races. He stated that the statue of the 'Magical Brethren' was a racist travesty, and it was time their world came out of the Dark ages. He added that he had other laws to propose, to promote the equality of the magical races and work towards the peaceful integration of the magical and non-magical worlds.

As he sat, and an angry elderly wizard rose to his feet to speak, Harry jumped to his feet and called out, "My Lords and Ladies. By the Law, that man has no right to speak in this chamber!"

There was a collective gasp, and the Chief Sorceress (Headmistress Madame Minerva McGonagall) demanded an explanation of Lord Black's interjection (giving Harry a broad smile as she did so). As a witch, the title of Chief Warlock was not applicable.

Harry stood and had held out a sheaf of parchments. He said, "Madame Chairman, Lords and Ladies, I wish to enter this report into evidence for consideration by this house. It is a confidential report of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, written by the Action Group of the Aurors Division. It details the findings of investigative raids on the houses of some of the Ancient and Noble Houses. By my personal request, my own residences were included in these investigations, so that there could be no accusation of favouritism."

"These investigations found clear evidence of the presence of muggle artefacts in the residences of some twenty three of the supposed members of this chamber, including those of the wizard who just attempted to speak. Many appear to be gifts from Death Eaters, as they bore the magical signatures or fingerprints of convicted and executed Death Eaters. In many cases, the artefacts were wines and spirits; I can understand the desire for such items, but they remain muggle artefacts under the law. Now, under at least one of the laws I seek to repeal to wit, Ministry Statute 1996-7423, any wizard who is the head of an Ancient And Noble House, who is found to have any muggle artefacts in their possession, except where these are 'spoils of war', shall be stripped of their rank, their house will be dissolved, and they shall have no right to sit as a member of this chamber. As no state of formal war has ever been declared against the muggle world, this caveat cannot be applied. The 'spoils of war' clause was, I assume, an attempt by the supporters and collaborators of the Death Eaters to put a legal face on their outright theft of the property of the muggles they had abused and murdered.

Since the fall of Tom Riddle (also known as Lord Voldemort) and his followers, several of these laws have not been enforced. I say that this is not acceptable. Either our world is ruled by laws or not. If the laws are not to be enforced, they must be repealed.

As to the status of the gentleman opposite, either this and the other laws must be repealed, or they must be enforced. I will not accept the repeal of only some of the laws I have detailed. All or none. If no laws are repealed, then the wizard opposite, and twenty two others, have not right to speak in this chamber, their houses must be dissolved, and their assets confiscated by the Ministry."

"Either way, things will change."

"Thank you Madame Chairman for this opportunity to speak."

The Chief Sorcerous spoke "Thank you, Lord Black, for bringing these important matters to our attention. I declare a one hour recess while members consider the issues before you."

The chamber sat in shock. They had never before considered the implications of the laws they had passed under the influence (either monetary, by indication of favour, or of outright threats) of the Death Eaters when it looked like Voldemort was in charge.


	14. End Game

**End Game**

On the first of November, Harry Potter was sitting in a beach chair at one of the 'Club Sirius' chain of holiday camps. This one was located at Ellis Beach, north of Cairns Australia. The resort had its own beach, and convenient access to the Great Barrier Reef for those who enjoyed snorkelling, scuba-ing or using gillyweed.

Harry was expecting friends and family to arrive for the fourth annual celebration of what he had come to call the great 'Shooting Fish in a Barrel'.

When Jack Black heard of Harry's dealings with the rest of British magical society, he told Harry that he had proved himself worthy of the family name, and that he and Chrissie would be definitely joining the group for the celebrations. Mark and Janine would be coming just for the day and the fireworks.

Jack and Harry had negotiated with the local salties to leave their section of the beach alone. The big males got thirty chickens a month, and their harems and the smaller males got twenty a month each. Jack commented that with this bribe, they really didn't even need to get the crocs agreement not to attack as they, being cold-blooded and so not needing to eat as often as mammalian or avian predators, wouldn't be hungry any time soon anyway.

The two wizards had also had a chat with the local snake population, and worked out an agreement that the wards around the property would keep rodents out, so that the snakes could hunt at the periphery, and so did not need to enter the campsite (with some rather severe and painful consequences if they did). The wards, which extended several hundred metres into the sea, would also keep out other undesirable and toxic creatures, such as the jellyfish and cane toads.

Harry had long since reconciled with Ginny, now Mrs Dimitrov. She and Grigor had first gotten together at the World Cup of Quidditch, when in what was billed as 'The Family Feud', she and Ron (on the English team) had played against Viktor and Grigor (Bulgaria). She had met Grigor earlier at Ron's place in Sofia, as he was Sophia Krum's brother. . When Grigor was drafted by Liverpool in the English League, they met frequently and fell in love at the quidditch pub (The Broom and Snitch) in Blackpool when the Harpies, the Clippers and the Anglesey Angels hung out

When George Weasley heard of their engagement, he considered their positions on their teams, and fell over laughing. After a frustrating half hour trying to get a sensible answer from her brother, Ginny was informed that Ginny, as Seeker and sometimes Chaser, was given the task of inserting something into a round orifice, while Grigor as Keeper was supposed to prevent it. In George's opinion, if they were getting married, they would have to switch roles. Ginny quickly and very pointedly advised him that the Keeper's function would no longer be at all relevant once she was married.

Harry looked up the beach at the beautiful witch with a stunning head of long red hair approaching, holding little Tomas's hand on one side and that of her husband in the other.

He heard a giggle from behind him and turned to see Lady Black smiling at him. She looked up from little Giselle at her breast and said "Harry, you still love Ginny, don't you? I have no complaint, my love. You have enough love for us all." Harry nodded, and added "She always had such lovely hair."

Mrs Black, on his other side, laughed "Good catch, Potter". She was cradling little Jimmy, who had fallen asleep against Pansy's swelling belly, which the healers had said contained a little sister.

Gabrielle added with a light giggle, "Lovely like our little Giselle, no" – caressing her newborn daughter's blonde fuzz – the girl had inevitably inherited her mother's hair colour, but Gabrielle knew she would have to keep Giselle's hair long enough to weigh it down, as she had unfortunately inherited her father's unruly hair. When Harry first saw the wild bush on Gabi's third daughter's head, he commented that she might be the first Veela to have an 'Afro' style.

Harry looked around, and asked Gabrielle "Where are Coco and Debbie? I don't see them and I don't like them wandering down to the beach on their own. They're still too young."

Gabrielle shook her head in disgust at her husband's query, and responded "Mademoiselle Aldeberanna Black is at the beach with _sa tante et ses cousines_! And _chéri_, if you must shorten her name, please call her Anna – 'Debbie' sounds like the name of a girl who takes off her clothes for the entertainment of men. When she goes to school, she and her friends will decide what to call her as they create their own self-images and awareness of the world – if she decides at that time to be 'Debbie', _qu'elle domage_, I will not be happy about it but then, I am only her mother. Ultimately, the name we wear is our own choice. Anyway, she is at the beach with Fleur and Victoire and Dominque."

Harry smiled at his first wife, and asked "But isn't it a nude beach?" to which the Veela grinned and nodded and said "Yes Harry, and at the age of two and a half years, clothes are _such_ an encumbrance, not as in later years when they will be a fine accessory to the beauty of our daughter."

Harry smirked a bit. "Gabi, for a Veela, you are sounding rather prudish."

Gabrielle looked at her husband sternly. "Ce n'est pas gentil, Harry! Tu moque de moi." To which her husband replied, "Oui, ma chére femme, un petit peu. After all, you are Veela. I thought Veela were creatures of love."

Gabrielle nodded. "Oui, I am Veela, but my days of attracting or entertaining men ended before they could begin. And it was your fault, my dear husband! Because of what you did _for_ me, and what that did _to_ me, my undressing for the entertainment of men is for your eyes, and your eyes only, mon chér mari. And yes, the three beautiful daughters you and I brought into this word are Veela with all the blessings and pains that includes. I am Veela, and happy that our girls are as well, but neither am I blind to the unkindnesses and sheer evil which this world holds for beautiful girls, who must learn to make their way without you and I by their sides to protect them, and although we will teach them how to be safe, they are still innocent little girls, and I would like that they can enjoy it for a longer time than either you or I were given. I am their mother, and it is my role in life to worry about them."

"But at the moment, Tori and Niki are keeping their eyes on our petite Anna and making sure she gets into no trouble. And to finish my answer to your original question, Capella Colette is inside, most likely sitting contentedly on the lap of my mother, who is probably telling her fantastic stories about the fairies who, by the way, are her distant cousins."

Fleur and Bill Weasley had arrived that morning with their family, and Michel and Franni had come the previous evening. The two French women were overjoyed at their first meeting with little Giselle, while Michel smiled at his son-in-law and said "Mon vieux, we men, I am afraid that we are outnumbered, yes. At least you have the one boy", looking over at little James Cyrus (named for both his grandfathers).

Harry mentioned to Michel that Pansy's father had died a couple years ago, just before Jimmy was born, and so they could use his name again. At Michel's raised eyebrow questioning this concept, Harry explained that Moishe had told Harry about the Jewish custom of not naming a child for a living relative, as it would tempt the 'evil eye'. Harry told Michel that he had experienced enough evil in his own life, and although not being Jewish himself, he was not willing to take any chance of evil following his son. It had seemed a reasonable precaution.

As every year, he had sent a personal invitation for Hermione to join the party. Gil and Elly Granger had also been invited, as always, but so far had begged off.

As he had promised Gil and Elly when he asked for Hermione's hand, Harry had had Gabrielle and Pansy meet Gil and Elly, before he agreed to marry either of them. The non-maj couple had found this quite awkward, but were in part impressed that Harry was following through with the promise he made to them, even if the reason for the promise no longer seemed pertinent. Gil and Elly had discussed it at length, and could not decide whether it was just Harry being honourable, whether there was still hope for their daughter and him, or whether it was a sign of Harry's desperate inability to give up on the girl who had been one of his first true friends.

Hermione's description of what Harry had done didn't match what they knew of the young wizard they had come to respect, and they considered the possibility that Hermione, because of an abbreviated description of what happened which she got from her best girlfriend who had just escaped being raped, had gotten extremely upset and had not got the whole story straight. They knew their daughter was a proud and fiercely stubborn young woman, and now she might be in a position where her pride would not allow her to say she was wrong. Harry's continuing contact might just indicate that he was leaving that door open.

Hermione herself was also puzzled by what could be considered Harry's inability to get over her, but in the back of her mind, there were other thoughts as well.

Ron and Magda were supposed to arrive the next day with their three kids, but Molly and Arthur had come the previous day with George and Angelina. Farflenurg and his mate, as well as Grippinghand and her husband were to arrive in two days, officially on an inspection tour of the properties and the bank's investments, as goblins never took holidays (or so they said).

As always, Molly had refused to go topless at the beach, as most of the other women were doing, claiming that she needed the support, and she found that the 'bra' spell many witches used was rather uncomfortable. Instead she wore a white satin two-piece suit which resembled a bikini bottom and a French bustier above – Arthur thoroughly (and very obviously) approved of his wife's favourite swimsuit. When she first wore the suit, she had asked Gabrielle (being French) why it was called (as she pronounced it) a 'boost-yeah'. Ginny laughed and told her mother that it was because it boosted her 'yeahs'.

Neville and 'the harem' (Nev commented that Sue and Hannah might as well have been the world's only strawberry-blonde Veelas, as they seemed to produce only girls) had come in the previous evening, having left England that morning, and had stopped in Dubai to try out the artificial sky hill. Between the two witches, the family had seven daughters. Hannah jokingly complained that Sue had five to her two, and Nev had better pay more attention to her instead of always 'jumping Susan's bones' (Sue responded by saying that as Maddy Jenny, and Alexis had come as a package deal, she thought they were pretty even in production. She was just a bit more 'efficient' than Hannah).

By virtue of delivering her first daughter five minutes before Sue delivered hers, Hannah was declared Lady Longbottom (presumptive) while Susan became Mrs Longbottom. After that, as both witches were taking Healer training, each had delivered each other's children.

Neville was also bringing along Millicent Bulstrode, who had worked with Nev in the gardening club at Hogwarts. After a couple of very tough years undergoing detoxification and rehabilitation for injuries sustained, and seven suicide attempts with toxic plants, Millie was finally putting her life back together. She had taken some remedial training with Pomona Sprout, and completed her NEWT in Herbology (interrupted by the war). She still had some low points, but was starting to move on. She was now managing one of Nev's herb and plant greenhouses. Millie told Hannah that, now that Poppy Pomfrey had managed to remove most of her scars, and she had become a lot more fit, she was looking forward to trying out a skimpy swimsuit – she commented to Hannah that this would be the first time she would be almost naked, but where nobody would expect anything more than that from her, and she was really looking forward to this new situation.

Katie and Seamus and their families were going to come when they could, but would definitely be there in time for the commemorative fireworks show that George had planned for the anniversary (after all, light is a form of radiation, so Harry had not really lied to the wizarding public), and the Krums and the rest of the Weasleys and were coming the day after next.

Gabrielle looked at Harry carefully, as he continued to look towards the floo connection. She said quietly, "I don't think she is coming, Harry. Not this year, maybe not ever. I am sorry, my love, but we Veela can look into the heart, and you have a hole in yours. I don't know that it will ever heal."

Just then, the floo connection flared green, and two young women stepped out gracefully, while Gil Granger stumbled out, holding his wife up to prevent her from falling, saying loudly to his daughter, "Hermione, I don't care how many times we do that. That's just weird!"

Harry rose to greet the newcomers, when he was swept into a hug from a short blonde witch with the little-girl sing-song voice. Luna looked up into Harry's eyes, and said simply "They approve of me. They have given their approval."

Harry stood stock-still with his mouth hanging open, as the implications of Luna's statement hit him.

He turned to face the bushy-haired witch who was standing in front of him.

Hermione said simply "Hello Harry. Do you have another hug for an old friend?" She was instantly swept into a crushing hug, and managed to croak out "You don't quite need to put the five years worth into one single hug."

As Harry released her, she was swept into hugs from the entire crowd. Ginny was first, saying "Hi Sis. We missed you! We missed you terribly."

Harry called for an elf, to arrange for a room for the Grangers (who were not really expected), and turned to Luna and asked "Would you prefer a cabin of your own, or are you sharing with Hermione?"

Luna smiled in her quiet way, and said, "I think you need to discuss that with Hermione."

Again, Harry stood there looking a bit stunned as additional implications became apparent.

He turned to his first female friend and asked simply "Hermione?"

She looked at him with sad but determined eyes. "I notice that the position of Mrs Potter is still vacant. Can I apply for the job? Please?"

Harry looked over at Gabrielle and Pansy, who were nodding vigorously.

With a bit of a wicked smile to his 'Black' wives, Harry turned to Hermione, and said, "No, I don't think so." As the shock and hurt began to show on her face, he added softly and lovingly, "However, if you are willing to settle for the more senior position of 'Lady Potter', I think I can accommodate."

Harry was again on the receiving end of a vigorous hug, as Hermione mumbled into his shoulder through her tears "That was nasty, Harry! Even if I deserved it. And I did. And thank you."

Hermione took Harry's head in her hands and turned his face towards her again. "Harry, it took me a long time to think it over. A long time. I knew you were a better man than what I was accusing you of. You could not more turn into a monster than I could grab a piece of the sun and hold it in my hand." She was momentarily distracted when Pansy started to choke and laugh at the same time.

"When I saw Luna's and Skeeter's articles, I just couldn't reconcile what I knew of you, and what they were saying. I was still hurting so badly about the elves, and so put it behind me for a long time as I was finishing my Healer training, but my mind kept coming back to it. Finally, I arranged a meeting with Pansy and Farflenurg, who explained things."

"Harry, I am a proud woman, and perhaps a foolish one. I have been blind, but I think my eyes are open now. The hardest part was getting past my pride – sometimes pride is just too damn expensive. Can I retract my statement of a couple years ago?"

The long hurt was still in the back of Harry's eyes, as he looked over at his approving wives, and an altogether too eager Luna Lovegood. A bit of a twinkle came into his eyes, and he asked, "Which statement? The 'yes', or the 'no'?"

Hermione said quietly, almost shyly and sadly, "The 'no'. Please." She then looked over at Ginny and George, who looked like they were starting to laugh, and said, "You have definitely been hanging around the Weasleys too much!"

Harry smiled and said "If you remember, we are both ex-officio Weasleys, because they adopted us both."

Harry looked into Hermione's deep brown eyes. "Hermione, you were the first girl I was ever friends with. You were the first I fell in love with. I know you realized that I had very little chance of surviving Voldemort, and by the time it looked like I might live, you had set your heart on Ron. I _couldn't_ come between you, I just couldn't. I couldn't do that to you, and I couldn't do that to Ron. Hermione, I tried to be what Ginny wanted, what Ginny needed. I couldn't. When she sent me back the ring, I was relieved. In my heart of hearts, 'Mrs Potter' has always been you. When I found out all the legal obligations I inherited, 'Lady Potter' was you. Only you."

He then dropped to one knee, and held out his right hand which was holding the Potter family engagement ring. "Hermione Granger, I ask again. Will you marry me?"

Before Hermione could speak to make it official, Harry Potter found himself and his first girlfriend wrapped in a multi-person hug with at least five blondes and a whole bunch of red-heads.


End file.
